


Voyages

by Jabberwocky (Sisterwives)



Series: Origins [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Crimes, Junkrat and Roadhog are genuinely terrible people and I will make no excuses for their behavior, M/M, Murder, Oral Fixation, Sexual Frustration, omnic prejudice, the good stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-04 13:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 61,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10991835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sisterwives/pseuds/Jabberwocky
Summary: After a rocky start and some ups and downs, Junkrat and Roadhog are officially partners, even if things haven’t progressed quite as far as Junkrat would like. With his treasure at the heart of their grandiose plans, they take their adventures overseas and leave their mark on the world, for better or worse. (Mostly for worse. They’re criminals.) Sequel to “Origins.”Origins: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8697352





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Buckle up, guys and gals and nonbinary pals, because I’m finally following up Origins with a sequel. If you haven’t read Origins, I really really recommend that you do -- this first chapter is kind of a prologue with some refresher details, setting us up for the bulk of this story, but there is defs the occasional reference that kind of requires an understanding of the first fic to fully get it. I know it’s a bit of a slow start, but I hope you’ll stick with it, and thank you so much for reading! Oh, and just a quick disclaimer: This fic may veer into the occasional explicit territory, but since it’s not focused on smut, I’m choosing to keep it at an M rating.

Junkrat had been the one to suggest that they go international. After the Hyde Global incident, he was more than happy to bid Australia adieu and travel overseas. His flitting notion of going legit had evaporated entirely at the suit’s betrayal, and he wanted to go back to what he did best: good, honest, straightforward crime.

“Gotta say, I’m a bit disappointed that we didn’t end up scrapping any bots after all,” Junkrat said that night, once they’d fled the city and set up camp in an abandoned warehouse further down the coast. “Drones ain’t the same.” He toyed with his RIP-tire, running his finger around its rim. After learning of Junkrat’s treasure, Roadhog had done his best to dissuade him from storing it inside his tire once more, but he had been unable to provide him with a more secure storage space that Junkrat approved of. Back in the tire it went. “Listen, ‘Hog, I’ve been thinkin’...” He dropped his hand and shifted to sit on the tire instead.

Roadhog snorted and put the cap back on his canteen. “There’s a surprise.”

Junkrat kicked at him, his boot striking empty air. “I’ve been _thinkin’,_ ” he repeated, raising his voice in exaggeration, “that maybe it’s time to test out my little treasure I got here.” He patted the tire and raised his brows at Roadhog, as if to say _how ‘bout it?_

“To unleash the god program,” Roadhog clarified.

“That’s the ticket!” Junkrat grinned at him. “Imagine...” He gazed dreamily up at the ceiling of the warehouse. “Takin’ over the omnics. I could make them walk right into my traps, blow themselves up! How lovely.” He sighed, a noise of utter contentment.

Roadhog chuckled. “I’m in. Where?”

Junkrat craned his neck to look at him. “Where what?”

“Anubis took over Cairo. Probably would have spread through all of Egypt if it weren't for Helix.”

“So, where do I want to be god?” He considered it. “Somewhere with lots of bots, yeah? Maybe not here, you and yer mates thinned us out with the whole omnium explosion thing. 'Course, still too many of the bastards for my liking, but at least it's not like Numbani. Place’s crawlin’ with the tinheads.” He paused. “Say, that wouldn't be a bad spot! Sure, it'd be ambitious, but y’know me, I like to dream big.”

“No job too big…”

“...No score too small!” It had become their mantra as of late, and Junkrat jumped at the opportunity to finish Roadhog's sentence every time. He relished the verbal affirmation of their partnership. “But hey, why stop there? We could hit up Tokyo, London--” He interrupted his current train of thought with a gasp. “Korea! Can you imagine takin’ down that huge fucker in their ocean?”

“We'd be heroes.”

They both burst into raucous laughter at the thought of anyone considering them heroes. Junkrat wiped a tear from his eye. “But seriously, mate. We oughta go international. I'm sick of this place. I wanna _travel!”_

So they traveled. Matters were complicated by the fact that they couldn't go on holiday like normal people. It wasn't like two highly notorious criminals could just saunter onto a plane, particularly two who looked as distinctive as they did.

They resorted to convoluted schemes in an attempt to evade the law, aided and abetted by their ethically dubious associates. With a raid of a scuba diving facility near Sydney and Rosa’s assistance, they were able to engineer a rebreather for Junkrat and an apparatus for Roadhog’s gas mask that served as a carbon dioxide scrubber. Having a computer scientist on their side proved invaluable, as she helped with the electronic bits of the rebreather.

“You sure this is gonna work?” Ava asked, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

“You’ve done crazier things,” Junkrat pointed out. He climbed into the motorcycle’s sidecar, feet propped up and head lolling back. “Sliced open me head in yer kitchen--”

“--blew up the omnium--” Roadhog added.

“--busted us outta prison. What’re ya worried for?”

Ava dropped her hand and laughed. “Got me there! Yeah, you’ll be fine.” She pulled Junkrat out of the sidecar so she could slap the two of them on the back good-naturedly.

Rosa kissed them both on the cheek. “Be safe, all right?”

Junkrat grinned. “Can’t promise nothin’!”

“We’ll try,” Roadhog assured her. Junkrat snorted. Empty words. Roadhog might have been more sensible than he was (not that it took much), but they were both reckless by nature, and it was rare for Roadhog to object to any of their wilder ventures.

“I suppose that’s as good as I’m going to get,” Rosa said with a laugh.

There was a momentary lull as everyone absorbed the fact that they didn’t know when they would next see each other, or if they ever would again. Although it was empty except for the massive crate containing their motorcycle, the cargo container they were all standing in felt claustrophobic under the weight of saying goodbye.

Rosa broke the silence. “Oh, but before you go, I have a little going away present for you both...”

Junkrat’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?” he said, unable to hide the incredulity in his voice. People _never_ gave him presents. Junkers weren’t keen on handouts, and he had never had someone in his life who liked him enough to give him a gift without expecting something in return.

Rosa handed each of them two soft, knitted bundles. “What’s this?” Junkrat asked, confused. He unfolded it and shook it out to find that it was a jumper made out of thick, black wool, with his trademark bright yellow, x’d out smiley face stitched on the front. A giggle bubbled out of him, and he bounced as he hugged it to his chest. He couldn’t remember the last time he wore a shirt, a proper shirt -- there was an army green vest that he had worn over his bare chest as a kid, but he didn’t know if that counted.

“I figured you both might need something warm on your travels -- I hear other countries get a lot colder than Oz in November.” Rosa’s eyes twinkled. “And I knew you would probably have a hard time finding ones that fit.”

Junkrat laughed, elbowing Roadhog. “Yeah, can’t be too easy finding duds in yer size, eh, big guy?” He remembered the way Roadhog’s prison undershirt had constantly ridden up his belly, exposing a slice of his tattoo. There was something to be said for this whole “clothes” thing. Somehow, seeing the way the fabric clung to Roadhog, muscles straining against the too-tight sleeves, felt way more indecent than when he was shirtless.

Roadhog ignored his comment; there was no point in saying anything to the contrary. “Thanks, Rosa,” he said, turning the jumper around so that Junkrat could see it. It was the polar opposite of his, light cream instead of pitch black, a giant pink pig’s head instead of a demented smiley face. It should have been all wrong, given that Roadhog was without a doubt an aggressive, spiked up killer -- or, at the very least, ironic in nature. But it wasn’t. The tooth-rottingly sweet jumper just _suited_ him.

“Yeah!” Junkrat enthused. “Thanks, mate.” He spread out the jumper on a nearby package so that he could admire it. He was itching to pull it on right now, just for the novelty of it, but the humid heat of the cargo container made him reconsider.

He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Junkrat wasn’t used to people being affectionate with him, asides from Roadhog, and even that was still a relatively recent turn of events. It wasn’t for lack of trying -- he’d certainly _tried_ to be chummy with the other Junkers before he’d been forced to go on the lam, but there was something about him that others tended to find off-putting.

So it was nice to have someone else instigate a friendly hug: Rosa’s soft and warm, just like her, Ava’s a tight, one-armed squeeze.

“Thanks heaps for all the help, mate,” he said gratefully as Ava pulled away.

“No worries, you'll just owe me one.” Ava winked at him. “Take it easy, alright? Don't forget about the rest of us down under! And be safe. You lose another limb or get shot, and Dr. Bones ain't around to patch ya up. And I don't really think Dr. Boom is up to the task.”

Junkrat snickered. “Ahh, probably not,” he admitted. He was good at a lot of things, most of which had to do with destroying property or hurting people: healing was not one of these things.

He let Roadhog say his goodbyes in private -- Ava and Rosa were his friends first and foremost, after all -- and crawled back into the sidecar, sloppily folding the jumper and using it as a pillow. If he peeked over the top of the crate, he could see Roadhog’s forehead pressed against Ava’s. Sexual incompatibility aside, there was a certain kind of bond formed between two people who had committed an act of terrorism together. Junkrat had gotten into some serious trouble with Roadhog before, but they had yet to do anything that quite matched the scale of blowing up an omnium.

He hoped to change that. He reached over his shoulder and fondly patted his tire.

There was _just_ enough room for Roadhog to squeeze into the crate before it was sealed.

“Good thing yer not claustrophobic, eh?”

“Speak for yourself,” Roadhog grunted. He handed Junkrat his rebreather.

Outside the crate, they could hear the sounds of Ava and Rosa filling the rest of the cargo container with junk to be mailed. The more large packages to cover up the motorcycle crate, the lower the chances of anyone bothering to pop theirs open for a visual inspection.

The general gist of their plan amounted to the two of them crossing the ocean as stowaways on a cargo ship. Ava and Rosa were their enablers, posing as women ostensibly shipping their belongings overseas for a fresh start. Between bribes, the cost of engineering the rebreathers, and shipping and handling fees, it was turning out to be their most expensive heist yet. Neither of them particularly cared; they needed to burn through their considerable earnings regardless. Australian dollars would be virtually useless to them the minute they set foot in Japan, given that they had no intention of waltzing into a bank -- at least, not with the express purpose of civilly exchanging currency.

The most challenging hurdle would be overcoming the carbon dioxide detectors used to expose stowaways. With any luck, the rebreathers would take care of that, absorbing and recycling the carbon dioxide in every exhale.

It was a long, tense stretch of time as they waited for some signal that they’d escaped undetected. It was only made worse by the fact that they couldn’t speak.

Junkrat wasn’t _claustrophobic_ so much as he was _restless_. The crate they were in was huge, large enough to accommodate both their bike and sidecar, but with two overgrown men in it, it got cramped very quickly. He could only sit still for so long before he got fidgety.

He didn’t realise he was acting twitchy until Roadhog pinned his hands to his lap. He startled, head jerking up to look at Roadhog. It didn't do him much good, though -- he couldn't read whatever expression Roadhog was giving him beneath his gas mask, and they were currently incapable of using words to communicate.

He sat there, silently staring down at his lap and Roadhog's hand covering the both of his. He had nice hands, Junkrat decided. Strong and sturdy like the rest of him. Nail polish needed a touch-up, though. Still, not as bad as Junkrat's. He had an unfortunate habit of picking at his nails when there was nothing else to keep his hands busy. It was a reflex from back before he'd lost his arm. He might not have had nails on his mechanical hand to properly chip away at the polish, but he could still cause it to flake off with enough persistence.

Maybe it was a good thing Roadhog was restraining his hands, then. A sudden, unbidden image popped in his head of Roadhog’s hands restraining him in other ways. He quickly shook off the thought, as pleasant a vision as it was, by flexing his fingers.

Roadhog squeezed warningly, a silent reprimand to _stop moving, there's already not enough space in here._ A burst of laughter bubbled up in Junkrat's chest. Holding it in was quite possibly the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life, with the possible exception of learning how to build a peg leg that supported his body and retraining himself to walk.

He _really_ needed to get out of this box.

They both lurched on the spot as the crate pitched forward. Junkrat didn't know what was happening: if they were just being processed, if they were being loaded onto the ship, if someone had found them out and they were being forcibly ejected from the premises. He wormed his hand out from underneath Roadhog's so that he could lace their fingers together. He just hoped that the bribe would be enough to get them through the initial inspection process, and that the rebreather would carry them home.

They'd found the most vulnerable worker to exploit, with Ava as their proxy, and he seemed grateful enough to hold up his end of the bargain. Ten years from now, some child would be going to university courtesy of the country's biggest criminals. It was kind of touching to think about, Junkrat later said, the two of them acting as sponsors to the unwitting less fortunate, even if it was done solely to further their nefarious plans.

After what felt like an eternity, they heard the unmistakable sounds of the ship's engines roaring to life, followed by the gentle rocking of the waves as they pulled away from the port. Junkrat let go of Roadhog's hand and sat up so quickly that he banged his head on the lid of the crate.

Roadhog detached his rebreathing apparatus for the express purpose of laughing at him, or so Junkrat was convinced. He rubbed his head ruefully and struggled to remove his own rebreather while Roadhog shouldered open the lid of the crate.

Junkrat unfolded his body and climbed out of their hiding space onto the metal shipping container that was wedged behind their box. “Next time, I say we just steal the fuckin' boat,” was the first thing Junkrat said after emerging. He cracked every joint in his neck with a satisfying series of pops and stretched out his back. His head was sore -- _that_ was going to leave a bump -- but the relief he felt at pulling off the first leg of their venture surpassed any physical discomfort.  

“Good a plan as any.”

“This whole ‘bein’ careful’ thing is a roight pain in the arse, I tell ya,” Junkrat continued. They were no strangers to convoluted plans, but they weren't used to being _cautious_. It just wasn't their style. They were loud and obnoxious and stuck out like a sore thumb, and if Junkrat was going for an elaborate scheme, it was going to be a bold one. After spending more time in the slammer than either of them would have liked, however, they decided it was time for a change of tack. Actively attempting to evade capture, as opposed to doing whatever they wanted and running when they were inevitably caught in the act, couldn’t hurt. “Tokyo better be worth all this bullshit.”

He glanced around the cargo hold. They were on the far end of the ship, near the loading ramp, surrounded by packages that ranged the gamut of sizes. There was hardly any floor space to navigate. He envisioned crawling around on top of boxes to get from one side of the hold to another.

Entirely out of nowhere, his thoughts from inside the crate popped into his mind. “Yer nails are chipped!” he blurted out and pointed at Roadhog triumphantly, thoroughly pleased that his memory hadn’t failed him for once.

To his credit, Roadhog took the abrupt change of subject in stride. He looked down at his hands and grunted in agreement. “Yeah. So are yours.” He pulled their dwindling supply of nail polish out of his pocket and sat down, Junkrat scrambling to sit next to him.

Junkrat held out his hand expectantly. He hadn't been very good at applying nail polish when he had two arms made out of flesh and bone. Now that one of them was mechanical, he was even worse, thanks to the fact that it was nigh impossible for him to hold the small brush in his right hand. Built out of scrap metal and a prayer, his prosthetic naturally lacked the epidermal ridges that would help secure his grip, so the brush just rolled out from between his metal fingers.

Thankfully, he had Roadhog. Roadhog, who always painted Junkrat’s nails first before painting his own. “A proper gentleman,” Junkrat had once called him before bursting into a fit of giggles, although Roadhog had maintained that it was because he couldn’t paint someone else’s nails while his own were still wet.

It was one of the few times when he was capable of sitting perfectly still, his fingertips poised on Roadhog’s palm. The spell was broken as soon as Roadhog declared the touchup complete, and it was back to fidgeting as he waited for his nails to dry. He’d gotten impatient in the past and started touching things before they had set, and it always led to smudged nails, so he had quickly learned his lesson.

It didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, though. He groaned dramatically, waving his hand in the air, while Roadhog studiously ignored him and concentrated on applying polish to his own nails. The wait was made worse by the fact that he was intensely curious about his surroundings and wanted nothing more than to poke around and see what other people were shipping overseas.

The moment his nails were dry enough for him to handle objects, he bounded to his feet and set off to explore. The cargo hold was filled with countless packages, and it was sensory overload as his eyes darted here and there, trying to figure out what he wanted to pry open first. He climbed over boxes, peeking at shipping labels and attempting guess which of them contained interesting loot.

He drew up short when he saw a large parcel with a logo on the side that identified it as a gourmet gift basket company. It took him a solid five minutes to figure out how to break into the crate, until he found a piece of metal that served as a crowbar. He wrenched it open to discover an enormous, cellophane-wrapped basket stuffed with fancy Australian cheeses, biscuits, macadamia nuts, and--

Junkrat threw his hands up in the air. “Jackpot!” he crowed.

“What did you find?” Roadhog called out.

Junkrat brandished two bottles. “We got _wine_ , mate! And food too,” he added as an afterthought. “But the grog’s the important bit.”

He snatched up a lump of gouda to bring back with the bottles of wine, so that they could pretend to be the snobby fine dining assholes that they so often mocked. Junkrat put on his poshest accent.

“Wine and cheese for the good sir!” He bit into the hunk of cheese and passed it to Roadhog along with one of the bottles of wine. He plopped down beside him, the second bottle in his lap, and unscrewed his index finger to expose one of the screwdrivers that were part of his mechanical arm’s infrastructure.

Junkrat took care of the cork by stabbing it with the small screwdriver. He raised his bottle in Roadhog’s direction. “I propose a toast!” he declared. “To new adventures!”

“To new adventures,” Roadhog echoed. “And old friends.”

Junkrat was touched, but he tried not to let on just how much the sentiment affected him. Still, he couldn’t hold back the smile that stretched across his face. “Cheers, mate!” he said, clinking bottles with Roadhog and taking a hearty swig. He was fairly certain wine wasn’t meant to be chugged, but he’d be damned if he let that stop him.

Unlike hard liquor, which made him rowdier than ever, wine turned Junkrat into a sleepy drunk. A bottle or so later, he yawned and inched closer to Roadhog, seeking out creature comforts.

“S’good shit,” he mumbled. “Only ever got pissed off plonk before, y’know, whenever one of the Junkers got their hands on a wine cask or two.” He didn’t know that the good stuff tasted so much better. Wine would likely never be his drink of choice, but it wasn’t all that bad.

“Good old chateau cardboard,” Roadhog rumbled.

Even in his groggy state, Junkrat found the term inexplicably hilarious. He laughed uproariously and pressed an affectionate kiss to Roadhog’s arm.

For once, he didn’t have much to say; he just wanted to be close to his partner and enjoy a moment of silent, drunken bliss. They didn’t get quiet moments together very often. Roadhog was absorbed in sewing a new patch onto his harness, and Junkrat pulled out his detonator to give his own hands something to do. He rested against Roadhog’s leg, his entire body heavy and lethargic and warm as the waves of drowsiness washed over him.

Roadhog placed a hand on his head and ruffled his hair, and Junkrat barely suppressed a purr of contentment. It was a small gesture, but one that he loved. It was affectionate in a way that he had never experienced before Roadhog came into his life. It spoke of familiarity. It made him feel like he was _home_. He leaned into Roadhog’s touch and fiddled with his detonator, wrapping tape around it. It was cozy in the cargo hold like this, tucked up against Roadhog’s side, and he gradually drifted off to sleep, detonator falling to the wayside.


	2. Chapter 2

He woke up to find that he had drooled all over Roadhog’s arm when he was conked out. “Whoops. Sorry, mate, got a lil’ somethin’ on ya there.” He rubbed off the saliva with his forearm and wiped it on his shorts before climbing to his feet. The alcohol’s effects had worn off in his sleep, leaving him dry-mouthed and slightly achy in the temples, but it was nothing that a few gulps of water couldn’t fix -- one of the packages Ava had mailed alongside them was a slab of flavored mineral water, an obscure Australian brand that she could provide justification for sending overseas. He propped his hands on his hips and scanned the cargo hold for his next conquest.

“Gross,” Roadhog told him, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Junkrat giggled. “Not like yer not used to havin’ my spit all over ya!”

“True,” Roadhog agreed with a huff of amusement. Junkrat was not the neatest of kissers.

“Y’know, _there’s_ somethin’ we can do to pass the time...” Junkrat sniggered as he scrambled on top of a large box. He estimated that sitting on top of it would put him roughly at Roadhog’s eye level. He made grabby motions with his hands in an attempt to lure Roadhog over to him. “Mind takin’ off that mask of yers?”

Roadhog gave a grunt of assent as he stood up. He reached for the straps of his mask, and Junkrat felt his heart quicken. He technically knew what lay beneath, having felt the swathe of twisted, scarred flesh that marked Roadhog as a survivor of a nasty fire, but Roadhog still refused to show him his face entirely. Unfortunately, this time was no different, and he pushed the mask up just far enough to reveal his jaw and mouth.

“Still deprivin’ me of yer beauty, eh?” Junkrat said, unable to stop himself from bemoaning Roadhog’s reticent nature.

Roadhog’s wide grin was lopsided: a crooked grin with crooked teeth, and Junkrat loved it. He wondered how many times Roadhog had smiled without his noticing, shielded by the barrier of his gas mask. “Yeah,”  he said. “This is all you get.”

“Good enough for me! All I really need, roight?” Junkrat wrapped his arms around Roadhog’s neck and kissed him with all the fervour of a man starved of intimacy. He was enthusiastic, if sloppy, but his poor technique made for more opportunities to practise.

Roadhog took control of the kiss in the hopes of teaching Junkrat a better technique than all tongue, no temperance. A little restraint went a long way. Junkrat didn't mind relinquishing control, not when it meant Roadhog gripping his face in those two hands and leaving him -- _literally_ \-- breathless.

Junkrat gasped into Roadhog’s mouth, grinding up against him. He probably should have been embarrassed that he was already hard after a few minutes of making out with no below the belt touching to speak of, but Roadhog tended to have that effect on him. He didn’t care how he looked, shamelessly rutting against Roadhog’s belly, not when it felt so fucking _good_.

The last time things had gotten this hot and heavy between them, they'd been interrupted by the sound of approaching police sirens. The time before that, it was an ambush by a scraggly group of Junkers. Before that, their dinner had started burning. There was always a crisis to be dealt with, and Junkrat had nearly given up hope on ever getting laid.

Now, however, there were no distractions, nothing to keep them from doing as they pleased. It was positively exhilarating.

Junkrat pushed Roadhog away from him, putting just enough distance between them to give him room to hop off the box he was sitting on. He fell onto his knees with a breathless giggle and tugged at Roadhog’s belt, attempting to figure out how to unfasten the custom plate that served as a buckle. It took a great deal of concentration. His tongue poked out of his mouth as he tried to decipher the mechanism, which didn’t catch in quite the same way as his own belt buckle.

“Whole lotta work just to suck yer dick, but -- heh -- worth it!”

His focus was broken when Roadhog pulled on his hair, tugging his head up to look at him. It was too urgent to be sexy, and the odd look that twisted the corner of Roadhog’s mouth only confirmed that.

“No,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat dropped his hands and frowned up at Roadhog. “Whaddya mean, no? Thought y’were into this.”

“I am.”

This made less than zero sense to Junkrat. “Then why not?” he demanded to know.

“Because.”

It was as valid a reason as any, but it wasn’t one Junkrat was satisfied with.

He was still on his knees. “Fine,” he said shortly, climbing to his feet. At least the pressing situation in his pants had lessened in all the confusion. He jerked his head in the opposite direction, nodding at the far end of the cargo hold. “Just gonna dip for a bit, then.”

He slinked off to be alone and process, his mind a jumble of thoughts. He picked his way through the cargo hold to put as much distance as possible between him and Roadhog, and he took out his frustrations on the various packages that stood in his way.

Maybe looking through other people’s mail would help him forget the buzz of indignation and sudden sense of inferiority that clouded his head.

He recoiled in disgust at the first container he broke into. It took him a few moments to realise that he wasn’t looking at an actual omnic, but a detailed, life-sized photograph of one, a diagram depicting the contents of the package being shipped. He inspected it further.  

“This a fuckin’ sex bot?” he muttered to himself, simultaneously incredulous and revolted. It wasn’t an omnic, but a “personal pleasure device,” or so the label said. He hadn’t realised that there was a market for functional, non-sentient robots built for the pure purpose of masturbation -- but apparently there was a global demand for them, if some corporation was shipping one from Sydney to Tokyo. It might not have had any consciousness or free will, but it could walk, talk, and fuck. Too close to an omnic for his taste.

It wasn’t like Junkrat didn’t have any perverse ideas of his own, and he had certainly entertained the thought of building a mechanical device to help him get off, but you couldn’t pay him enough to fuck anything that even remotely resembled an omnic.

Rationally, he knew that the robot before him couldn’t think and possessed no artificial intelligence, but still, its visual similarity to the bots who _could_ do so gave him the heebie jeebies. He tore open the box. “Disgusting,” he said aloud, critically eyeing the robot, which had clearly been built as a facsimile of a human woman with ridiculously exaggerated proportions. He raided the husk of the sex bot for any parts that he could repurpose for his own inventions, then vowed to use the box to take care of any personal business, because really, fuck whoever had ordered this.

He stuffed his pockets and the bag slung around his bony hips with various mechanical odds and ends.

 _Moving on_ , he thought to himself. Looking at the fake omnic for too long was gonna make him sick. Robots -- proper, non-feeling mechanical devices -- were only good when they didn’t represent the humanoid second-class citizens that he so detested.

He tried another box.

It took him a few moments to figure out what he was looking at. The case was filled with soft, white toys, each with a cartoonish happy face, pink blush markings, and green tendrils.

Junkrat picked up one of the plushies and studied it. He didn’t _get_ it -- was it an onion? A peach? A lump of garlic? Why did it have tentacles? -- but it looked like something Roadhog would like. It _was_ pretty cute.

He stuffed the plush toy behind his back. “Roadhog!” he called out as he started making his way back to their corner of the ship. He had cooled off significantly. So Roadhog wasn’t in the mood tonight. He guessed it made sense, they _were_ in the middle of pulling off a complex operation. He’d try jumping his bones later, once they were settled in Japan.

Roadhog gave a questioning grunt and tilted his head at him. Junkrat climbed over the last box standing in his way. “Gotcha something.” He held out the plushie. “Happy birthday!”

“It’s not my birthday,” Roadhog said, but he accepted the gift. He held it in both of his hands, carefully examining it.

“S’called a pachimari,” Junkrat informed him, having read the label. “Thought maybe y’d like it. Cute stuff’s kinda yer _thing_ , ain’t it?”

Roadhog squeezed it. It squeaked, causing them both to emit small noises of surprise. Junkrat hadn’t anticipated that bonus. Roadhog looked at him. “I love it,” he stated. The tacit approval made Junkrat glow with pride, and a grin threatened to split his face in two.

“I knew ya would! It’s all cuddly, roight? Like you!” He sat down and took the pachimari from Roadhog. He stuffed it behind his head as a makeshift pillow and leaned against their motorcycle crate. Roadhog promptly tugged it away from him, causing the back of his head to crack against the box.

“Ow!” Junkrat rubbed the base of his skull. “Watch it!” Roadhog didn’t apologise, responding only with a vaguely threatening hum. Junkrat shifted to use his his belly as a pillow instead.

“What’re we gonna do first when we land?” he asked Roadhog. Even with a direct path to Japan and the miracles of modern technology, it would still take them the better part of five days until they arrived in Japan. They might as well use the time to strategise.

“Get more of these,” Roadhog replied, tenderly cradling the pachimari in his hands.

Junkrat cackled. “Good a plan as any!”

\---

As they neared the last leg of their journey, Junkrat was going stir-crazy. He was used to being cooped up for a week or so; he did it every time he and Roadhog needed to lay low after a particularly successful string of crimes. The key difference between then and now, however, was their choice of shelter: a deserted house in the desolate Outback, long abandoned by Australians who had the sense to get away from the irradiated region, was very different from the storage hold of a cargo ship. There, they could venture outside briefly to get some fresh air and sunshine, or at least crack open a window. Here, not so much.

“I don’t know if I can make it, ‘Hog,” Junkrat moaned. At present, he was draped over a crate, arm flung over his eyes.

“You’re being overdramatic again.”

Junkrat feigned indignance. “What a load of crap, I have _never_ been overdramatic a single day in my life!”

"You are always overdramatic," Roadhog pointed out.

Junkrat popped his head up to glare at him, then sat up straight. "Am not!"

They were too busy bickering to notice when the boat stopped rocking beneath them.

"Hang on," Junkrat said, shoving his hand into the snout of Roadhog's mask in an attempt to silence him. "D'you feel anything, or am I just mental?"

"You’re mental. What am I supposed to be feeling?"

Junkrat pointed to the floor of the ship, and it clicked.

"Get back in the box," Roadhog said, shoving Junkrat off of the crate he had reappropriated as a lounge chair and in the direction of their own crate. "We must be here."

"S'your fault we didn't notice," Junkrat said, being antagonistic purely for the sake of being antagonistic. Roadhog pushed him in response, and he giggled maniacally.

Roadhog hefted the lid of the crate, prepared to seal them both back in once they'd secured their hiding spot, while Junkrat climbed inside.

The door to the cargo hold, a scant few metres from them, slid open, and a slim man trundled in, loading cart in hand.

All involved parties froze: Junkrat mid-climb, one foot still in the air, Roadhog with the massive lid still in his arms, the dock worker still holding onto his trolley.

Junkrat was the first to break the silence. "G'day!" he said with a jaunty salute. Roadhog dropped the lid with a resounding thump. The dock worker responded, clearly nervous, but neither of them could understand Japanese.

Junkrat hopped down from the box and approached the man, who looked at him warily. “Mate, I got not the _faintest_ idea of what yer sayin’, and even if I did, I don’t care. Roadhog?”  He held out his hand, fully expecting his bodyguard to understand what he was requesting. Roadhog tossed him his frag launcher. Junkrat promptly fumbled the catch and dropped it to the floor, although he made a quick recovery and pressed it to the man’s temple. “Anyway. So, howsabout you forget what ya saw, and we take our leave?” The man likely understood his words just about as much as they had understood his, but violence was the universal language. He nodded frantically, a droplet of sweat beading on his forehead.

"Righto!" Junkrat said brightly, lowering the grenade launcher and glancing back at his partner in crime.

Roadhog had used his time constructively and torn down the side of the crate, freeing the motorcycle and creating a ramp. Junkrat booked it back to the bike and leapt into the sidecar while Roadhog revved up the engine.

"Outta our way, ya dingus!" Junkrat shouted, and the cargo worker dove to the side, abandoning his trolley, which Roadhog promptly smashed into.

They peeled down the gangway and through a crowd of mail couriers, smashing through the first fence they saw.

"Okay, so we went to all that trouble, what with the rebreathers and all, and yer telling me that we coulda got away with just bargin' on-- camera!" They both smiled for the security feed, Roadhog taking his hand off the handlebars long enough to flash a thumbs-up, while Junkrat struck a dramatic pose. "--board? Forget it mate, I'm not even tryin' anymore. Let's just bludgeon our way through everything, eh? Who's gonna stop the two scary Australian Junkers? Caution's fer chumps."

Roadhog laughed, that deep, low chuckle that always reverberated in Junkrat's bones. "Fair enough," he said. They tore off down the streets of Tokyo, in search of a truck from which they could illegally siphon petrol for their motorcycle.

\---

The streets of Tokyo, Japan were vastly different from the wasteland of the Australian Outback. For one, Junkrat had never seen so many people in one place in his life. Even their trip to Sydney hadn't been so saturated with pedestrians. At first, it was overwhelming, all the hustle and bustle turning him skittish. However, once he realised that they could get away with committing crimes a lot easier when they were in crowds, any misgivings he had vanished.

Junkrat had every intention of scouting out the city's omnic population, but first, he felt they deserved a vacation. What better way to unwind than at an arcade?

He was glued to the soft drink machine. “Look, 'Hog, they got all _kinds_ of fizzy drinks here!” He hadn't heard of any of the brands before. Most of them weren’t in English, but he could make out _Kiki Cola_ , _Murloc_ , and _Nano_. Despite having no idea what they tasted like, they were making him salivate. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Which, oh which, should I try first?” When he didn't get a response, he turned around. “Roadhog?”

Roadhog had abandoned him to check out the machines that dispensed an entirely different kind of loot: stuffed toys. There was one claw machine in particular that Roadhog was fixated on, the one affixed with a sign that read “UFO.” Junkrat recognised the pachimari that they had strapped to the back of their chopper.

Roadhog’s snout was pressed against the window of the machine, much as Junkrat’s tongue had been against the glass of the vending machine. Besides him was a small boy with a tuft of blue hair and a pachimari tank top, quietly sucking on a lollipop as he stared up at Roadhog.

Junkrat shoved the child aside with a shout of, “Move, he’s mine!” and squeezed next to Roadhog. “Looks like you found where baby pachimari come from.”

Roadhog gave a grunt of assent, and they were silent for a split second. Junkrat eyed the crane inside the machine, wishing that he had some yen so he could test it and study the machinery.

Roadhog spoke first. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Depends what yer thinkin’, mate. _I'm_ thinkin’ we gotta liberate some of these city wankers of their wallets. I wanna see this beaut in action.”

“Not what I was thinking.”

“ _Or_ ,” Junkrat continued, raising an imperious finger in the air to silence him, “we liberate these poor souls from their prison. We'd be doin’ ‘em a favour, really, givin’ them all homes. You, me, and a million pachimari. One big happy family!”

He could sense Roadhog's smile through his gas mask. “Yeah! That's more like it.”

Junkrat flashed a grin back at him. “You take care of them, then. _I'm_ gettin’ us some bevvies to celebrate!” He unholstered his frag launcher and bounded off towards the vending machine.

He wasn’t going to discriminate between flavors now -- although he _was_ making it his personal mission to sample them all during their time in Japan -- he simply launched a grenade at the nearest dispenser, causing the thick pane of glass to splinter, cracks spreading out from the point of impact. He finished the job by kicking it in, sending shards and cans flying, and grabbed all the soft drinks he could carry. There was a similar crash behind him as Roadhog punched the claw machine, his spiked brass knuckles absorbing the shock and smashing the window entirely.

Junkrat had overestimated how much he could hold at one time and promptly started spilling cans when he took off running. Roadhog lumbered after him, hot on his heels, and he was doing a _much_ better job at holding onto his purchases than Junkrat was.

Junkrat gave up trying to carry them all and settled for guzzling what he could, letting the other cans fall as they may. “Oh, that’s _good_ ,” he said out loud, studying the can to figure out what brand it was -- Kiki Cola -- before tossing the empty can behind him.  

They burst out of the arcade into the afternoon sunlight, the small child wailing in the distance at the loss of all the plush toys.

Miraculously, they made it back to their new home base without too much trouble. Most people leapt out of their path, alarmed and intimidated by the two Junkers barrelling down the street.

“Gotta get me a cart or somethin’, next time we do that,” Junkrat said, pushing aside the tarp that served as their front door. “Or make use of them arms of yers! How the heck did ya manage to carry all those?” He gestured at the heap of pachimari still in Roadhog’s arms.

Roadhog shrugged. He carefully set the pile down on the ground. “Practice.”

Junkrat eyed him. “Betcha y’could carry _me_.”

“Bet I could,” Roadhog agreed. He sat down on the throne of pachimari with a _whumph_ and the sound of a million squeakers going off at once. Junkrat giggled gleefully and joined him, squirming under Roadhog’s arm. He picked up one of the plush toys and squeaked it, over and over, until Roadhog finally ripped it out of his hands. Deprived of entertainment, Junkrat took stock of their new, albeit temporary, home.

It had been impossible for them to find an abandoned place to squat, given their determination to stay within the more urban areas of Tokyo, where concentrations of omnics were highest. An empty apartment did not stay empty for long. They had been ruminating on alternative options -- Roadhog had suggested staying under the bridge, but Junkrat had been adamant that he was “not gonna share with a buncha derros” -- when they stumbled across a portion of the city that had been blocked off with fences and tarps, surrounding several half-built skyscrapers.

They couldn’t read the sign that marked the company that was behind the construction zone, but by the looks of the logo and some general deductions, they had concluded that it was meant to be the site of future residences for omnics.

As it turned out, Japan had a relatively small population of omnics. The country was an island with limited space, and as such, there was a nationwide push to relocate omnics to the mainland. Robots were one thing; omnics were actual citizens who needed resources and living space. With new regulations in place and political, pro-omnic protests, Tokyo was redeveloping a portion of the city to house omnics with no place to go, providing them with dwellings that suited their non-human needs.

It was the stupidest thing Junkrat had ever heard of, and he had had quite a lot of stupid ideas in his lifetime.

The fence had been plastered with signs, mostly likely warning individuals not to trespass and espousing the dangers of entering a construction site with no safety gear. They were all in Japanese, however, and the only sign Junkrat had recognised was a bright red stop sign.

Stop signs didn’t stand in his way, nor Roadhog's: he always had preferred to think of them as “suggestions” rather than “rules,” and Roadhog's command of the road entailed blowing through red lights more often than not. With a brash laugh, Junkrat had immediately instructed Roadhog to toss him over the fence.

They'd found a fairly solid structure with tarp tacked between its pillars to protect the half- finished interior from the elements. It was a risky choice of dwelling, but given the dearth of heavy machinery, they had concluded that construction had been halted due to some bureaucratic nonsense or other.

“Maybe the good people of Tokyo are seein’ sense!” Junkrat had speculated. “Those heaps of junk don't _deserve_ fancy flats.”

It was a good decision, Junkrat thought as he burrowed deeper into the pile of pachimari. Anywhere was home as long as he had Roadhog by his side, but having the basic human comforts of a relatively enclosed, private space made it all the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun dicking around in the Hanamura arcade spawn room for "research." There is something so intensely satisfying about blowing up arcade games and vending machines.  
> And if you've never seen the picture that inspired that scene: https://cdn1.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/001/251/169/large/arnold-tsang-junkers-arcade-color.jpg?1443929021


	3. Chapter 3

Plush toys and soft drinks aside, Japan wasn’t all fun and games. The neon lights of Tokyo were less pretty and more harsh and unforgiving when you were bleeding beneath them. Their bravado always caught up to them eventually, and their attempt to swindle a man fell short when he pulled a knife on them. Roadhog promptly punched him in the face, but not before the perpetrator got a swipe in and sliced Junkrat's arm.

There was a sickening crunch as brass rings met bone, and their attacker spat out a mouthful of blood and teeth. Horrified, he turned tail and fled. Roadhog wiped his knuckles on his overalls. “Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth,” he muttered to himself.

“If yer finished, I could use a little help here, big guy!” Junkrat said through grit teeth, clutching his arm. It was only then that Roadhog noticed the blood seeping between his fingers.

“Let me see,” he said gruffly as he pulled Junkrat’s hand aside. It looked worse than it was -- it was relatively shallow, but the knife had nicked a vein, and the copious amount of blood that was oozing out of the cut refused to be staunched.

“You'll live,” Roadhog told him. He undid the bindings around his wrist and wrapped the strip of cloth around Junkrat's arm, just to stem the flow until they could retrieve some proper bandages. “Can you walk?” he asked.

“Yeah, ‘course, m’fine,” Junkrat automatically answered. It was sheer reflex -- he was used to bluffing his way through minor injuries. You wouldn’t last long in Junkertown if you couldn’t stand some pain. Junkers were jackals. They'd leap on you at the first sign of weakness and eat you alive.

The implications of Roadhog’s question caught up to him seconds after the words left his mouth, and he hastily amended, “But, ah, if yer offerin’ to carry me...” He raised his eyebrows and grinned.

“You said you can walk,” Roadhog replied and set off down the street in the direction of their makeshift home.

Junkrat frowned and jogged after him. “Wait, no -- carry me, ‘Hog!” he demanded. He tried to hop onto Roadhog’s back, only to yelp in pain the moment he stretched his wounded arm up.

At the small noise of distress, Roadhog glanced back at him in alarm. Finding that Junkrat wasn’t dying, he heaved a world-weary sigh and crouched down.

“Thank you!” Junkrat said cheerily. He scrabbled onto Roadhog's back, hooking his good arm around his neck and letting the bloody one dangle uselessly. “Onward, my noble steed!”

“I _will_ drop you.”

Junkrat was fairly sure he would have already done so if it weren't for his injury. He snickered and rested his chin on Roadhog's head, the tuft of his ponytail tickling his neck.

Roadhog unceremoniously dumped Junkrat on his ass after they snuck back into the construction zone. The rudeness of the gesture was offset by the tenderness with which he unwound the cloth he had tied around Junkrat's arm. It was the story of their relationship -- they were comfortable showing one another how much they cared, but underneath it all, they were both assholes. It was why they worked well together: they were jerks with little regard for the lives of anyone but themselves -- and, as of late, each other.

Roadhog rummaged around in their loot bag, a battered, pig-faced pink duffel bag. They had recently dipped into their first aid kit, a bag filled with medical supplies that Ava had gifted them, but it was anyone's guess where they had left it.

“I need a bandage--” A small metallic hand with spindly wire fingers handed him the box of bandages. “Thanks,” Roadhog automatically said. He was halfway through bandaging Junkrat’s arm when he froze. Junkrat's brain hadn't immediately processed that Roadhog's 'thank you' had been directed at a third party, and it took a split second longer for the oddity of the situation to strike him. They both turned their heads to look at the infiltrator.

“What,” Junkrat said, “is that.” He had seen -- hell, he had _built_ \-- his fair share of perplexing devices during his life at Junkertown. He had never seen anything quite like this. Before them was a pale yellow robot, the smallest one that either of them had ever seen. It stood at about a foot high and was all smooth curves, with rounded paws and cat ears. Junkrat would have taken it to be a child’s toy if it hadn’t been for the upper paws, which were cracked open to reveal two extended metallic limbs, and the digital screen on the front of its head. A cutesy, happy cat face was displayed on the screen, one of the kaomoji they’d gotten used to seeing on merchandise around Tokyo. It trilled happily.

“I think it’s a robot,” Roadhog said. He finished bandaging Junkrat’s arm and sat back to look at it.

Junkrat snorted. “That’s bloody obvious. Is it an _omnic_ , though?” He reached for his frag launcher. It didn’t look like it could do much damage, but just in case. Omnics put him on edge.

Roadhog gave a noncommittal hum and picked up the robot to study it. With a whirr, it retracted its spindly arms into its body, the paws snapping shut around them like two egg-shaped capsules.

“It don’t look like no omnic I’ve ever seen,” Junkrat said. The omnics he was familiar with were all humanoid, asides from the war machines that were used during the Omnic Crisis. It didn’t _look_ like it was capable of free will, so perhaps his misgivings were just that: sheer paranoia. “Does it know what we’re talkin’ about?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

The display screen flickered, replacing the cat face with the letters N-O. Junkrat recoiled. “No?” He squinted at it suspiciously. “What _are_ you?”

It was a rhetorical question, but after a beat or two, the robot’s screen changed to display the letters IDK.

“Id-kuh,” Junkrat read. “The hell does that mean?”

“‘I don’t know,’” Roadhog said.

“I don’t know either! Is it makin’ fun of us? We should blow it up.”

“No, it’s _saying,_ ‘I don’t know,’” Roadhog explained. “It’s an acronym.”

“Oh.” Junkrat scratched his head. “That’s a puzzler. It don’t know what it is, then?” Roadhog shrugged. “Ya don’t know what you are. Yes or no?” He directed the question to the robot.

The screen changed again: _Yes._

“Well, that answers that,” Junkrat said, satisfied. “The thing can’t be an omnic, then, it got no proper self-awareness.”

“It doesn’t pass the Rensselaer Test,” Roadhog mused.

“What? No, it doesn’t pass the _Junkrat_ test.” The robot’s face flickered back to its normal, happy cat face. Junkrat tapped his chin as he looked down at it. “I guess it _is_ kinda cute. These people really like their robots, don’t they? Least they’re going with the good kinda bots and not harbouring too many bloody omnics.” He picked up a crushed soft drink can and tossed it across the room. “Go get that for me, bot.”

The robot obliged with a beep of agreement. Junkrat clapped his hands in delight. “It takes orders! Roadhog, mate, we got us a robot sidekick!”

Later that night, in the witching hour, Junkrat sat bolt upright. “Kiki!” he all but shouted, startling Roadhog out of his sleep and causing him to lunge for his scrap gun.

When he realised that there was no danger, asides from the threat that Junkrat posed to his beauty sleep, Roadhog put down the weapon. “What,” he said, voice still heavy with sleep and more than a little vexed.

“The soft drink machine!” Junkrat told him, entirely oblivious to his partner’s displeasure. “That’s what it looks like. The bot, I mean. Looks like the mascot on that vending machine. Kiki Cola.”

“Great,” Roadhog said, the word dripping with sarcasm.

“It _is_ great!” Junkrat enthused. “That was botherin’ me. Knew it looked familiar, just couldn’t place it.” Junkrat knocked on his own skull. He could admit that his mind was a sieve.

“Have you been awake this whole time, thinking about this?”

“Kinda,” Junkrat confessed. “Well, y’know. And other things.”

Roadhog grunted and rolled over onto his side, facing away from Junkrat. “Go the fuck to sleep.”

Junkrat did his best to lay perfectly still and quiet his mind, but it was still racing a mile a minute. He sat up and peeked over Roadhog’s massive form to peer at his face. “What’s that Nano guy?” Roadhog had enough sense not to engage this time, but that didn’t stop Junkrat from continuing his train of thought. “Y’know, that other mascot on the machines? The Nano soft drink, or whatever? Little yellow bastard--”

Roadhog rolled back over and clamped a hand over Junkrat’s mouth. “Shut. Up. And sleep.”

Voice too muffled to verbally reply, Junkrat nodded, wide-eyed. Roadhog let go of him and turned back around. He opened his mouth to say something further, an apology, probably, but for once, he thought better of it. It was hard for him to fully restrain himself once the words were on his tongue, however, so he mouthed a near silent “sorry.” Roadhog twitched ever so slightly.

It took him several more hours until he finally passed out. All his thoughts about cartoon soft drink mascots were replaced by thoughts of Roadhog: his palm silencing him, thick fingers working inside his mouth, hands wandering down the rest of his body.

He shivered in delight.

\---

Adopting Kiki into their fold turned out to be one of their better ideas. A subservient robot was an excellent asset in committing petty theft. They decided to test its skills with a simple heist, nothing flashy, just stealing items from a small corner store and attempting to be unobtrusive.

“Hang on,” Junkrat said, lowering the binoculars he had been using to scope out the shop. “Does it know about the fine pastime of shoplifting? Do we gotta teach it? It’s a robot, it’s stupid. Only knows what it’s told, roight?”

Roadhog shrugged, hands spread in the universal gesture for _beats me._

Junkrat crouched down so he could address the robot. “Okay, then. Let’s see if yer worth keepin’ around,” he said. “Wanna steal somethin’ for us?” He considered his own words and laughed. “Don't know why I'm askin’. Not like ya have much of a choice, dontcha?” Junkrat was operating under a very narrow view of what he believed Kiki to be: an artificially intelligent but non-sentient robot -- but his first impression had yet to be proven wrong, so he figured he was onto something. “Steal somethin’ for us, and I won't scrap ya. Got it?”

Kiki gave a mechanical trill, its screen flashing the letters Y-E-S.

They sauntered into the store like they owned the place. Junkrat was immediately disturbed by the prompt greeting, the cashier beaming at them the minute they stepped inside. He was not used to people -- namely, potential victims -- being so jolly towards the two of them. They looked like they were from the wrong side of the tracks: Roadhog with his mask hiding his face from view, Junkrat with his usual manic grin, the both of them shirtless, with a spiked tire and a machete strapped to their backs. Really, it was a wonder they didn't get the police called on them more often than they did. "I'm... not gonna talk to you," was the first and only thing he could think of to say. "Leave me alone, I got this."

He headed straight for the wall of coolers. He had emptied his usual harness before they left for the mission, giving him room to insert soft drink cans in the spaces where he slotted his pipe bomb canisters. He whistled a jaunty tune as he gathered up an armful of cans: fizzy drinks, energy drinks, miscellaneous beverages, as much as he could carry. He hefted the lot of them and shielded himself from view of the cashier, inching his way behind a rack of stationary and greeting cards. The cashier was occupied, cooing over Kiki ( _I knew we made the right decision, keepin' it around_ , he thought to himself, as if he hadn't spent the past half hour speculating on the robot's usefulness). He took his time deciding which of the drinks to store in his harness -- but not too long, they were operating on a time limit, after all. Any duplicates that he had, he rolled down the aisle away from him. "Roadhog, mate, I just got a brill idea!" he stage whispered.

Roadhog, who had been busy stuffing snacks everywhere (in their duffel bag, his pockets, down his pants), wandered over to him, a cellophane-wrapped pastry in hand. "Try me," he said. He made no attempt to hide his belief that not all of Junkrat's ideas were brilliant.

Junkrat spread his hands in front of him. "Picture, for a moment, if you will..." He waited for Roadhog to respond.

"What am I picturi--?"

"Bowling!" Junkrat interrupted him before he could finish the question, filling his enthusiastic exclamation with all the drama he could muster.

"Bowling," Roadhog repeated.

"With soft drink cans!" Junkrat rolled another can down the aisle. "Empty ones for pins, full ones for bowling balls. See? Genius!"

"Not the word I would use, but okay."

Junkrat scoffed. He popped open the tab of one of the cans that he had been contemplating. It was bright green with flowers on it, its label indecipherable to him. "Maybe ya just don't get it.”

“I get it. It’s stupid.”

“You'll learn to appreciate my genius someday."

Roadhog gave a skeptic hum. “Rockmelons, maybe,” he said after a moment's silence.

Junkrat whipped his head around to fix him with a grin of utter adoration. He loved it when Roadhog humoured his sillier ideas. “Even better!”

He tossed his head back and downed a gulp of the mystery liquid, his pinky extended regally. He promptly spat it back out and looked at the can as if it had wronged him. "What the hell is this swill?" he said, aghast.

Roadhog took the can from him and connected his mask’s drinking apparatus so that he could taste it himself. “Green tea,” he said, handing it back to Junkrat. “Bitter, though. It's unsweetened.”

Junkrat scoffed. “Bitter! Yeah, that’s a word for it, alright.” He held the can at arm’s length, dangling it between his index finger and his thumb. “I didn’t pay good money for this shit!”

“You _didn’t_ pay.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said!” Junkrat cackled at his own little joke. He handed the drink to Kiki. “Go take care of this, wouldja? Throw it at the son-of-a-bitch who put this in his vending machine.”

Kiki obliged. For a robot with such spindly arms, she could launch a half-full can a surprising distance. The cashier yelped, whipping his head around to find the source of the projectile. His eyes landed on Junkrat, who was pointing and laughing uproariously at him.

“Time to go,” Roadhog said, scooping Kiki up in one hand and grabbing the chain of Junkrat’s tire with the other.

“Oh, c’mon, the fun’s just startin’!” Junkrat protested. Kiki beeped in agreement.

Once they made it safely back to their hideout, they wasted no time in unpacking their haul. "Tonight, we feast like kings!" Junkrat said, rubbing his hands together. He turned to the robot. "Okay, pay up," he said. "Whatcha get? If it's rubbish, I'm tossin' you out."

Kiki's paws and the panel of its belly slid open, one of the mechanical limbs extending to retrieve the prize from its inner workings. It handed a wafer thin, plastic wrapped package to Junkrat.

"What, paper?" Junkrat said, fully prepared to rip it in half. He flipped it over, and his snide insults died on his lips. "What're these, then?" he asked. The page was covered with cutesy images, ranging from glittery stars and hearts to stylised animals and anthropomorphised food: winking hamburgers and french fries, blushing bottles of milk, and smiling ice cream cones. Junkrat used his nail to slice open the package. He could only see the top sheet, but as it was several layers thick, he assumed there were more treasures beneath.

He was not disappointed. “I _love_ it!” he announced, holding the stickers up to show Roadhog. “Okay, y’ve earned yer keep,” he told Kiki. "You can stay."

"Let me see," Roadhog said, reaching for the stickers.

Junkrat snatched them away from him, nearly toppling onto his side in his haste. "No! They're mine, she got them for _me_!" He spread them out and looked down at them fondly. "And I'm gonna save 'em for somethin' special, mind you. Can't exactly peel 'em up after ya put them down, can ya? I mean, ya _can_ , but then they're useless. Nah, I gotta find the roight surface for these!"

Later that night, after they had eaten, Junkrat examined the stickers again and decided to put one on Roadhog. He meant for it to be a joke, but Roadhog mistook his leaning over as him going in for a hug and pulled him onto his lap.

A small noise of surprise slipped out, and Junkrat laughed. He stuck the sticker to Roadhog’s pants.

Roadhog huffed in amusement. “Cute,” he said. Junkrat wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the sticker itself -- a glittery, pink cat’s head -- or his actions. Either way, he guessed it didn’t matter, because Roadhog pushed his mask up and bent down to kiss him. Junkrat melted in his arms, gripping the straps of his harness.

“That all it takes t’get one of those?” he mumbled against Roadhog’s lips. Roadhog laughed and moved the sticker from his leg to the vest of his harness, a badge of honour.

Junkrat began sneaking stickers onto Roadhog after that, fuelled by positive reinforcement and the hope of getting more attention lavished on him. He plastered his scrap gun with hearts and stars, stuck a sparkly pig on the holster for his machete, added stickers alongside the patches of his harness. Whatever felt right to him in the moment. It brightened his day, waiting for Roadhog to notice the latest addition.

He tried to be economical with his use of stickers, but he didn't have the greatest concept of frugality, and it wasn't long before he was down to the last sheet of stickers.

"Oi, don't got much left," he mused to himself. Roadhog had already passed out for the night, and he was amusing himself by talking to the robot. "I guess you deserve one too, dontcha?" he said. He waited for Kiki to beep in response, then slapped a winking cat face on her belly.

The light from Kiki's screen was a welcome addition to their humble home, because it gave him the ability to more keenly observe Roadhog as he slept. Junkrat crawled on top of him and rested his chin on his belly, studying the last of his stickers. He stuck one on the snout of Roadhog's gas mask on a whim and immediately decided that he liked it. A grin curled his lips. "Beautiful," he murmured to himself and reached for another one to attach to the mask. Roadhog grunted in his sleep, and Junkrat froze, hand poised mid-air. When the snoring resumed, he relaxed and peppered the gas mask with the last of his stickers. "My greatest masterpiece," he whispered once he was satisfied with his handiwork.

When the sun rose, he could fully admire the effect of Roadhog's face, usually so intimidating with that black leather mask, covered in adorable pink and white stickers. He could not stop staring.

Junkrat propped his chin on his hand and gazed dreamily at Roadhog. On the one hand, he wanted to spill the beans himself so that he could share his joy with Roadhog. On the other hand, he wanted to keep it to himself as long as possible, because he was sure Roadhog would remove them once he found out. As much as Roadhog enjoyed cute things, you couldn't exactly be a scary criminal when you were covered in sparkly, effeminate stickers. He was bound to discover them sooner or later when he went to shave his stubble after breakfast, but for now, Junkrat was content to enjoy the sight.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Roadhog finally asked.

"Like what?" Junkrat said innocently.

"Don't you come the raw prawn with me. You know what I mean. Like an idiot."

"Oi!" Junkrat exclaimed. "I'm not lookin' any different than normal. This is how I always look atcha." There was some degree of truth to it; he always felt like a lovesick idiot when he watched Roadhog.

"No it isn't. What, is there something on my face?" He said it sarcastically, but realization apparently dawned on him when Junkrat started cackling uncontrollably. Roadhog touched the leather of his mask. "Have you been putting stickers on me when I'm not looking?"

Junkrat clapped his hands in glee. "Yeah! I thought it suited you!"

Roadhog peeled a sticker off and examined the cheerful piece of onigiri. "You put this one on upside-down." He held it up, the sticker affixed to his finger.

"Eh, details, details." Junkrat wasn't concerned with such things, he just appreciated the overall aesthetic of it.

Roadhog picked at another sticker in an attempt to peel it off with his thumbnail. “I thought you were saving these for something special?”

“ _Yer_ something special!” Junkrat said, wide-eyed and earnest.

Roadhog stopped trying to remove the sticker and pressed the snout of his mask to the top of Junkrat's head in a kiss. “Smooth,” he said.

“I have my moments,” Junkrat replied. He felt the half-peeled sticker snag on a lock of his hair. When Roadhog pulled away, the sticker remained behind, fluttering from the tips of his hair. He snickered and tugged it off, pulling out several strands of hair along with it. He stuck it on the strap of his own harness, where it promptly fell off.

Roadhog’s hands searched his mask. “How many of these did you even put on me?”

“Twelve.” Junkrat's answer was swift. He'd been keeping track. “So I believe I'll be collectin’ payment from ya when yer done there…” He pointed at his mouth with a grin.

“I’m taking these off,” was all Roadhog said in response. He got up to leave, presumably so he could remove his mask in private.

“Oh, come on!” Junkrat said. “Why dontcha… _stick around_?” Roadhog pivoted his head to look at him, and he burst into manic giggles, thoroughly pleased with his own pun.

“Someday I’m just gonna leave you,” Roadhog deadpanned.

“No ya won’t,” Junkrat breezily replied, with the utmost confidence.

“Don’t tempt me,” was how Roadhog _actually_ responded, but “you’re right” was how Junkrat chose to _interpret_ it.

“‘Course ya won’t! I’m good company.”

“You’re good at a lot of things. Being annoying is one of them.”

“I beg yer pardon! I’m _eccentric_ , not annoying!” He paused, mid-mock-offence, and a grin slid across his face. “What else am I good at?”

Roadhog gave an amused exhale, a huff of air venting from the filters of his gas mask. He sat back down next to Junkrat. “Lots of things.”

“Yeah?” Junkrat straddled his lap, hooking his fingers beneath the straps of Roadhog’s mask. A restraining hand automatically circled his wrist, Roadhog’s little reminder not to take the mask off entirely. He heeded the warning and carefully slid the mask up, breaking its protective seal. “I could show ya what I’m good at.”

“Kissing is not one of those things.”

“Oi!” His previous fake offence turned into genuine offence. He knew Roadhog felt he used too much tongue, and sure, finesse wasn’t exactly his middle name, but he didn’t think he was _bad_. “I’ve gotten better!”

Roadhog laughed at him, which only made him more affronted, but any crossness evaporated when Roadhog was the one to instigate the kiss.

Junkrat hungrily kissed him back, greedy for more. Roadhog was acquiescent to all of his advances, letting him work his mouth open and allowing his hands to roam unchecked over his chest. It emboldened Junkrat and gave him the confidence to wander, leaving a wet trail in his wake as he dragged his tongue down Roadhog's neck.

Junkrat mouthed at his collarbone and quickly became preoccupied with sucking a hickey into the crook of his neck. Or trying to, at least. Unlike him, Roadhog had thick skin and didn't bruise easily. Roadhog's hand slid up his bare back to cup the back of his head, which Junkrat took as encouragement to be as rough as he pleased. He bit down, teeth sinking into his neck. When Roadhog groaned in response, Junkrat sniggered and nuzzled his face into Roadhog's shoulder. “Y’like that? Little bit of pain there?”

Roadhog gave a deep sigh and threaded his fingers through Junkrat's patchy hair. The rings on his left hand snagged, but Junkrat didn't mind. “Yeah,” Roadhog exhaled, breath hot against Junkrat's cheek. “Hurts _so_ good.”

Something about the cadence of his voice sent a jolt of lightning straight to Junkrat's crotch. “Holy shit,” he whispered. He hadn't realised how much the sound of Roadhog's voice could turn him on. It was a surprising revelation, and he loved it. He cackled with laughter, wriggling against Roadhog in delight, and bit him even harder. He was determined to leave teeth marks behind, signalling to the world that Roadhog was _his_ , and no one else could have him.

He felt Roadhog’s cock stir with interest against his thigh, and a thrill of excitement surged through him. He took it as a sign that things were different from the last time they'd fooled around, that this time, Roadhog wanted it.

Junkrat abandoned Roadhog's neck and began kissing his way down his chest, periodically pausing to mark him with another love bite. He paused when he reached the swell of Roadhog's belly, needing to take a moment to compose himself against the waves of lust that washed over him. Once he'd recovered, he resumed his wet trail, occasionally nipping at the tattoo.

Upon reaching the area where flesh met the thick canvas of Roadhog's overalls, Junkrat couldn't hold it in anymore. “God, I've been waiting for this me whole life,” he moaned before burying his face into Roadhog's clothed crotch. His long nose bumped against the bulge in Roadhog's pants.

His euphoria was short-lived. Roadhog’s hand snatched the harness strap that wrapped around Junkrat’s back, and he lifted him up, like a cat picking up a kitten by the scruff of its neck.

Junkrat looked up at him, confusion written all over his face. Roadhog shook his head. “No?” he said, voice uncharacteristically small.

“No,” Roadhog confirmed.

He looked down. Roadhog was no longer half hard, and it stung. “Okay. Okay, I get it, put me down.”

Roadhog let go, plopping him down on the concrete floor.

Junkrat straightened out his harness, wincing where the straps had cut into his chest. “What?” he asked. “What is it, do ya just not like getting blown?” He laughed nervously. “Cause I mean, I really want to, heh, but if ya don’t like it, I can always…”

“No, I do.” Roadhog fixed his gas mask, obscuring the exposed half of his face once more. The stickers that were still present didn’t bring any levity to the situation.

“Oh.” This was not the answer Junkrat had been expecting. “So it’s me, then?”

“Kind of.”

Junkrat’s shrill laughter was more than a little unhinged. “Oh, good! Great! Glad to hear it!”

“Not just you. Kind of me, too,” Roadhog hastened to add.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it! Ya don't gotta explain.” He turned away from Roadhog, too miffed to look at him any longer and unable to hide his hurt feelings. He rummaged around in their pile of junk to uncover his frag launcher. He hefted it against his shoulder and glanced back at Roadhog, who was simply sitting there, watching him. “Now if ya don’t mind, I got some things to take care of.”

He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he felt Roadhog’s eyes flick down to the front of his pants. This was one of the things he needed to take care of. He turned on his heel and stalked off.

On the other side of their unfinished domicile, Junkrat had built several towers out of the many empty soft drink cans he had accumulated. He had constructed the miniature tin city on a whim; it had just been a fun project to keep his hands busy, but they would make for good target practice.

Junkrat plopped down on a stack of metal beams that had been covered by a tarp. He shoved a hand down the front of his shorts, jerking off as he vented his frustrations by picking each tower off with a well-aimed pull of the trigger. He wasn't even terribly concerned with making it feel good; he just needed to release the tension that had built up inside. Watching the explosions of his grenades and the cans flying everywhere helped, strangely enough. Mass destruction was a bit of a turn-on.

He didn’t _want_ to think about Roadhog after being dismissed so rudely, but his face (well, his gas mask, really -- but it was such an extension of who Roadhog was, that it might as well have been his face) kept cropping up in his mind’s eye. Each time, he tried to shake the image off, but it was a futile effort.

Junkrat came into his hand with a frustrated growl. It was likely the weakest and most unsatisfying orgasm he'd ever experienced. He wiped his hand off on the tarp and turned his full attention back to his grenades. He popped off the rack of his frag launcher and reloaded it.

“Fuckin’… piece of piss,” he grumbled. He wasn’t sure who he was insulting, exactly: Roadhog or himself. He wasn’t _dumb_ , he knew perfectly well that he was odd, that his brain didn’t quite work right, that he was a touch more messed up then the rest of the Junkers. Still, he wasn’t exactly broken up about it -- he considered his childhood unconventional, not tragic, and even when his memory failed him, or he didn’t understand certain social mores, or he made bad judgment calls, he didn’t dwell on it. He was happy with the life he had built for himself with Roadhog.

But the sting of rejection brought all his shortcomings to the front of his mind, and he had to wonder if Roadhog didn’t want him because he wasn’t good enough. Junkrat was fully conscious about the fact that his brain didn’t always make the proper connections, but the connection between Roadhog’s refusal to further their relationship and Junkrat’s abnormal nature seemed too obvious. Why _would_ anyone want to fuck a grown man who couldn’t hold a pencil with the appropriate grip? Who took such childlike glee in plastering stickers everywhere? Who was clingy and possessive and fucked up in the head?

A nudge by his left knee brought him out of his cycle of self-loathing, and he looked up to find Kiki hovering nearby, an empty Kiki Cola can in her tiny robotic arm. He took it from her with the faintest glimmer of a smile. With an electronic chirp, Kiki returned to the last tower he had destroyed and began reassembling it.

“Yer not so bad after all, are ya?” Junkrat said, setting the can down next to him. For every structure that he blew up, Kiki brought him a can with her face on it before rebuilding what he had demolished.

He was so absorbed in blowing up soft drink cans and talking to himself that he didn’t notice Roadhog’s presence at first. He only jolted out of his reverie when he felt the telltale sensation of someone sitting down behind him.

Roadhog wrapped his arms around him and held him tight even as he tried to violently squirm out of his grip. Finally, Junkrat gave up and relaxed, sagging against Roadhog’s chest. He was too tired to struggle, and he didn’t like being mad at his partner. Besides, there was something about Roadhog’s embrace that always managed to calm him down, no matter what kind of tantrum he’d worked himself into.

"Sorry," Roadhog apologised, the snout of his mask snuffling against Junkrat's hair as he spoke. "Could've worded that better." Poor wording or not, it didn't change the sentiment of his message, but Junkrat could at least take solace in the knowledge that Roadhog didn't hate him. Didn’t explain why he wouldn’t let him blow him, but it was a step in the right direction. He still loved him enough to give him one of those mask kisses that Junkrat adored, so that was a small comfort.

"S'all good," Junkrat muttered, closing his eyes and leaning back against Roadhog. Their breaths fell in sync with each other, Junkrat unconsciously breathing in time with the rise and fall of Roadhog's stomach. They were still for a few moments, the room silent asides from the quiet clinking of aluminium as Kiki rebuilt the pyramids of soft drink cans that Junkrat had ruined. "She brought me some of the cans I blew up, y'know," Junkrat said.

His hair fluttered as Roadhog exhaled in amusement, the huff of air venting through the filters of his mask. "She's smart."

Junkrat wasn't sure when they had started referring to the robot as a "she" rather than an "it." It was vaguely unsettling to think about, but Kiki had grown on him. Non-omnic robots weren't all that bad, as it turned out. Virtual intelligence was supremely preferable to legitimately intelligent bots operating under the delusion that they possessed souls. "What a load of crock," he said out loud.

Roadhog paused. "You _don't_ think she's smart?" he clarified.

"No, no, no, she is! For a robot, anyway. I was just--" He was quickly realizing that he hadn't actually voiced the thoughts that had been tumbling through his head. "--never mind, alright?"

Roadhog didn't press further. He was used to these gaps in their conversation, when Junkrat spouted out non-sequiturs that had nothing to do with the topic at hand, all because his brain had jumped from one neural connection to the other without his properly communicating them.

"Look, let's just... let's go out, okay?" Junkrat finally said. "Forget about all this." The rejection still lingered in his mind, but he hoped that a full day of mischief and mayhem would push it out of his memory. He didn't want to keep reliving that moment of being physically pulled away from Roadhog and told that he was to blame for the abrupt change in mood, that it was his fault for being undesirable.

Sometimes he wondered if Roadhog only stayed with him for the money. Their various heists were lucrative, and they _did_ divide the spoils fifty-fifty. Maybe their relationship was all just a charade, an amusement meant to pass the time in between their crime sprees.

It was a sobering thought.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really doubt anyone noticed or cared, but if you were looking forward to a chapter on Friday, I'm sorry it was pushed back 'til today! Friday got away from me, and I've been sick all weekend. Still sick and frankly should be sleeping atm, but I wanted to get this chapter posted!

Junkrat was able to shelve his emotions for the time being. He was still shaken up about Roadhog’s rejection, but as long as he didn't think about it for too long, he managed.

A good old-fashioned stick-up always helped take his mind off things too. All it took was a grenade launcher in his hand, aimed at a cowering omnic shopkeeper, to feel like his old self again.

"C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, money in the bag!" he said, jerking his head at the wide-open duffel bag that Roadhog was holding. "Just empty the till, and I _won't_ blow you and yer worthless shop to smithereens. Cross me heart." He drew a sardonic X over the right side of his chest, then crossed his fingers behind his back. "Now hurry it up before I get angry. And _trust me_ , ya don't want to see me angry. Roight, Roadhog?"

Roadhog grunted.

"See? Me mate here knows what I'm talkin' about. Now just do it already, ya tin cunt, we don't got all day!"

The shopkeeper positively whimpered -- Junkrat didn't even know omnics _could_ whimper, but he hated them for it. It made them sound more human, which was the furthest thing from the truth. The omnic acquiesced, Junkrat watching with beady eyes to make sure that every last yen was transferred from the cash register to their bag. "Excellent!" he said brightly, grin stretching from ear to ear. "See, that wasn't so hard, now was it? Oh, and give some of them jewels to my associate here." The omnic hastily gathered up several ruby-laden necklaces and pushed them towards Kiki, who was balanced on the counter. She scooped up the jewelry and funneled it into the panel in her stomach for safekeeping. "That's more like it. I think we're done here then, dontcha? Roadhog?" He looked at his partner in crime for confirmation.

Roadhog zipped the bag up and slung it over his shoulder. He nodded at Junkrat, who pulled out his detonator, and headed for the door. Junkrat lingered by the counter long enough to drop some parting words. "I'd like to say I'd be seein' ya later, but we both know that's not gonna happen."

The omnic's head jerked up to look at the detonator. Junkrat waggled it at him, just to make sure he got the full gist of the situation. "What--" the omnic said, voice clouded with panic. "You said you wouldn't hurt me, as long as I gave the money to you!"

There was _one_ good thing about omnics, Junkrat thought, as much as he hated to admit it, and that was their ability to process and speak in any given language. It was tiring, trying to rob Japanese shops with owners who knew very little English.

Junkrat held up his crossed fingers. “Crossies don’t count!” He laughed maniacally. “And really, hate to break it to ya, mate, but if yer trustin' anything I say, then y' _deserve_ to get blown up. Never trust a Junker!" Junkrat picked Kiki up under one arm and fled the scene of the crime with a screech of laughter. The minute he was out of harm’s way, he pressed the button of his detonator. The shop exploded with a loud _kaboom_. He gave a sweeping bow in the general direction of the ensuing plume of smoke. “Rest in pieces!”

Junkrat was panting by the time they safely made it back to their hideout, winded from the running. He wasn’t lacking when it came to stamina, but running through half of Tokyo would exhaust even the toughest of athletes. He could only hobble so far before the exertion caught up to him. He collapsed with a breathless little giggle, dumping Kiki on the ground beside him.

“Oh, that was good,” he said after he sucked down a few lungfuls of precious air. “That was _real_ good. Whatcha got in the way of spoils, Kiki?”

The robot extended her thin metal arms and opened the panel in the front of her stomach. She withdrew several necklaces from her electronic innards and deposited them on the ground before him.

“Not bad,” Junkrat said, inspecting one of the items, a swanky little akoya pearl necklace. “All and all, I’d call that a success, eh, Roadhog?”

Roadhog grunted in the affirmative. He was too busy counting bills to waste his breath on giving a verbal response.

Junkrat smacked his lips. He was parched from all that running. “Get me one o’ those soft drinks over there, Kiki,” he said, glancing over at the pile of untouched cans.

Kiki did not respond. Junkrat frowned. Maybe she didn’t hear the directive. “I _said_ , go get me a drink, bot,” he repeated. Roadhog looked up from his counting.

The screen on Kiki’s face flashed blank for a split second before the usual, stylised kitty face was replaced by the letters N-O.

Junkrat’s scowl deepened. “Whaddya _mean_ , no?” A bad feeling stirred somewhere deep in his gut. Kiki had never disobeyed an order before -- she _couldn’t_ , right? She was just a standard helper robot. Wasn’t she?

He reached for his grenade launcher. "You can't tell _me_ 'no.' What, ya suddenly defective?"

"Junkrat," Roadhog began. Junkrat's eyes darted over to his partner. His gun was already drawn.

Kiki's screen flashed again, the same two letters blinking defiantly at him: N-O.

"Yer not defective," Junkrat said, trying to process this new piece of information by voicing it aloud. She was a device. All devices had a purpose; they were tools built to carry out a job. A mechanical robot was no different -- unless it had artificial intelligence. Free will. A “soul.” "So what, yer a fuckin' omnic?"

There was a long silence. Both Junkrat and Roadhog stared at the robot. They both knew the answer, but a sick sense of curiosity motivated them to hear her response. Finally, the screen changed: Y-E-S.

Junkrat made a noise of revulsion and lunged at Kiki, gun forgotten. He pinned the tiny robot to the ground, his boot covering the fading sticker he had stuck to her belly. "You _lied_ to me. Ya piece of junk-- Roadhog, it _lied_ to us!" The switch in pronouns, from 'she' to 'it', was entirely unconscious.

"You can't trust an omnic," Roadhog said, the disgust evident in his voice. Neither one of them recognised the hypocrisy of decrying omnics as untrustworthy after Junkrat had _just_ bragged about how Junkers weren't to be trusted. "What now?" Roadhog’s fingers flexed, and Junkrat had the distinct impression that he wanted nothing more than to crush the robot between his massive hands.

But Junkrat was selfish. He was horribly selfish, and even though there was a part of him that would have gotten off by watching Roadhog crumple metal as easily as a tissue, a much larger part of him wanted things done _his_ way. "Whaddya _think_?" he said. He held out his hand. "We blow it up, of course. Shoulda done that in the first place. Get me one of them mines and some tape." Roadhog obeyed, fetching the supplies for him. If Junkrat hadn't been so caught up in his loathing of Kiki at the moment, his ego would have inflated tremendously. He always did love it when Roadhog treated him like the boss -- which, of course, he was.

Junkrat used half the roll of adhesive to secure Kiki to his live concussion mine, the omnic beeping frantically the entire time. He stepped away from the excessively taped bundle and surveyed his handiwork. The only thing visible was the tips of Kiki's cat ears and the lights of her virtual eyes. "It's _cute_ ," he said, disdain dripping from the word. "Omnics ain't _supposed_ to be cute! Who the hell designed this thing, anyway?"

"Some Kiki Cola businessperson," Roadhog answered.

"Well, yeah, but-- _grrgh!_ " Junkrat growled in frustration. "Damn this country!" He kicked the mine, sending it skidding across the floor of the half-finished building. "I think it's time we move on, dontcha? Find somewhere else, this place ain't gonna work."

Roadhog grunted in agreement. "I'll get the stuff." Junkrat sat down, arms folded across his concave chest, and glared at Kiki. He had never felt so betrayed in his life. He had _trusted_ the robot, he'd thought it was a handy, fun little servant. That's what he got for thinking that he could believe anything a robot said. Omnics were deceptive, sneaky little bastards, and he hated that he had allowed himself to be tricked.

"What a fool," he muttered out loud.

"Did you say something?" Roadhog said, looking up. He was packing their belongings, filling the duffel bag and the sidecar of the motorcycle. There was no way they could tote along all the pachimari they'd acquired, but he _did_ add a second one to the back of their chopper.

"Nah, it's nothin'," Junkrat said. He stood up and strapped his RIP-tire to his back before climbing into the sidecar, perched on the mountain of their loot like a dragon laying claim to its hoard. Roadhog revved up the engine of the motorcycle, and they set off. As they exited the construction site by ramming through the chain link fence, Junkrat pressed the button of his detonator. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see it explode. One of the structural supports of the place they'd called home gave way. It was like he was watching it in slow mo: the building caving in with a deafening rumble, clouds of dust billowing in the wake of the detonation.

"Good riddance!" he said, shouting to be heard over the roar of the motorcycle's engines and the thunder of the building collapsing. With Roadhog at the helm, they careened down the streets of Tokyo.

\---

Junkrat insisted on stealing a boat. He was done stowing away and trying to keep quiet, which was hard enough for him without the added pressure of attempting not to get caught. After spending a day driving across Japan, they staked out the Shimonoseki ports in the hopes of picking out the best vessel for their purposes. Roadhog lobbied for a relatively unassuming fisherman's boat, but after staring at the signs advertising the high speed beetle ships that ferried cargo between Shimonoseki and Busan, South Korea, Junkrat was hellbent on hijacking one of the cargo ships ("It's only four hours!" he bargained. "That's no time, who knows how long that fish boat's gonna take? Besides, I wanna see what it’s like above deck on one of those ships after all that cargo hold mess.")

Like always, Roadhog ended up caving to Junkrat's whims. He did have a small victory, though: while Junkrat wanted to board the ship with all their usual grace and tact, plowing past security while yelling obscenities, Roadhog was able to convince him to dial it back. They stole a small fishing boat from a private dock, where they didn’t have to worry about radar tracking, security, or the Coast Guard immediately descending upon them.

Lurking under the cover of darkness, they waited until the ship loaded up its cargo and set sail before chasing after it. They both knew that their fishing boat was no match for the speed of a beetle-style cargo ship, so they had staked out a spot a good long distance away from shore, so they could intercept it in its path. Roadhog readied his hook and, in the split second that the ship passed them, fired it at the railing. It anchored the two boats together, and Junkrat couldn't stop himself from screaming as they were dragged along behind the cargo ship, their speed multiplied tenfold.

Roadhog shoved him violently, bringing him back to his senses, and he collected himself. "Okay, no, I'm fine, this is fine, we got this!" He shimmied up the taut length of chain that connected the two ships and scrambled on board. He hit the deck with a thud and, armed to the teeth, he set off to neutralise any officers he found.

He hadn't expected there to be many people on board, given that it was a simple, low volume cargo boat with no passengers to corral, but he hadn't expected it to be _quite_ as deserted as he found the ship. "Where the heck _is_ everybody?" he wondered aloud. He finally found the hub of the ship with the controls to steer it, as well as his answer: the ship was manned by two omnics, no doubt built for the express purpose of maritime navigation. He had to begrudgingly admit that it made sense for omnics to be ship captains and officers -- food was hard to manage when you were at sea, and the fewer mouths to feed, the better. Besides, it was a simple, direct shot from Japan to Busan: pick up the cargo, drop it off, no stops needed. Automating the process and putting it in the hands of robots was the way to go.

It didn't mean that Junkrat had to agree with it, though.

His instinct was to fire several grenades into the pilothouse, but Roadhog had given him strict orders to _not_ do this, and he had repeated the instructions to himself several times in a row to cement them in his brain. If he destroyed the ship's controls when attempting to take out the omnic behind the wheel, they would be up shit creek without a paddle, so to speak.

 _No matter_ , he thought to himself and deployed a steel trap at the entrance to the navigation cabin. He set a mine down on the ground and counted down in his head with a mental "five... four... three... two...." At the count of one, he leapt on top of it and detonated it mid-air, sending himself flying onto the roof of the cabin. There was a commotion beneath him, and one of the omnics ran out the door. The jaws of his steel trap snapped around his foot, and Junkrat had to bite his hand to keep from giving a crow of victory: _Gotcha!_

The omnic screamed, and his mate was quick to follow, abandoning the helm of the ship long enough to try and prise him out of the jaws of the bear trap. "Come on... come on...." Junkrat mouthed. The omnic wasn't far enough out the door; letting loose a grenade would be both ineffective and unwise, as it would give away his position without causing any real damage. With a grunt, the head omnic dragged his comrade free of the jaws of death, shattering Junkrat’s hard work. He didn’t have long to be outraged, however, as his prey exited the cabin to pursue the enemy who had laid the trap. Junkrat took the opportunity to pounce, lobbing a well-aimed grenade at the captain (unusual for him; he normally took a more chaotic, spread out approach to shooting, but accuracy was of the essence here) and leaping on top of the injured omnic.

He didn't need to look to know that the captain’s head had been blown clean off his shoulders. Which was fortunate for him, as he needed to concentrate all his efforts on wrestling the other omnic into submission. Even with a busted foot, he was surprisingly strong for a bucket of tin.

Junkrat used all of his weight (not that he had much of it) to pin the omnic to the ship’s deck and fumbled to unscrew one his mechanical arm’s fingers. He snapped, the flint embedded in his thumb striking against the ridged steel of his middle finger, and glowing hot sparks shot out.  “Get scrapped,” he grunted. The hot screwdriver stabbed the omnic’s chest with enough force to eventually puncture it. Blue tendrils of electricity crackled.

With another vicious stab, he speared the omnic’s power core and watched the dying lights in the omnic’s eyes (in his mind’s eye, a question mark floated over his head; he’d never thought to think about how omnics saw the world around them, but given the eyelashes he’d seen on the feminine-presenting omnics in advertisements, it seemed like as good a theory as any).

Something stirred in his chest when the lights went dark entirely. He shivered. He never felt as energised as he did when he was snuffing out an omnic’s life -- if you could even call it that. The realization of how _alive_ he felt at this moment, adrenaline pumping through his veins, was particularly hilarious given the dead omnic beneath him. He laughed and bounced to his feet, a spring in his step.

Junkrat laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out to crack his knuckles. He examined the controls inside the navigation cabin. They were still hurtling through the water at breakneck speed, and his first order of business was stopping the ship and letting Roadhog and their belongings on board. Then they could figure out how the hell they were going to get to South Korea from here.

He stopped the ship far too abruptly, causing him to lurch forward and bang his head. “That’s gonna leave a lump,” he said ruefully, rubbing the sore spot. The damage was only cosmetic; he was reasonably sure his brain had become impervious to assault over the years.

With enough trial and error -- and oh, wasn’t that the story of his life, constant trial and error? -- he figured out how to lower the cargo ship’s gangway. As with most modern beetle ferries, it was built into the ship itself so that there was no need for dock workers to bring out a foldable gangway every time the swift-sailing ship docked. After peeking over the railing and spotting Roadhog’s thumbs up that confirmed that he was in position, Junkrat lowered the gangway onto the deck of their stolen ship.

He abandoned the controls and scampered down the deck to meet Roadhog, who was loading their motorcycle (somewhere along the way, it had become _theirs_ and not _his_ ) on board. They engaged in a spirited debate about what to do with the fishing boat. Or rather, Junkrat argued passionately that they should sink it, while Roadhog continued to calmly repeat that an explosion of that magnitude could draw unwanted attention, whether or not they were in the middle of an ocean. Junkrat finally gave up, with the caveat that he be allowed to conduct a grand and entirely unnecessary explosion once they were in South Korea.

They abandoned the fishing boat, leaving it stranded in the middle of the sea. They were on their way back to the pilothouse when a thought occurred to Junkrat, and he visibly perked up.

“Wait, hold on just a tick,” he said, stopping in his tracks and flinging his arm out to halt Roadhog. “This is a cargo ship, ain't it? What say we see if there are any treasures to be found?”

Roadhog grunted in agreement, and Junkrat prowled around until he found a large, two panelled hatch cover embedded in the floor of the ship. “Now _that_ looks mighty suspicious, don’t it?” He rubbed his hands together.

Junkrat used the nearby lever to winch open the hatch to the cargo hold. He craned his neck as the panels folded open, curious to see what lay beneath. Several heads swiveled in his direction.

He slammed the door shut.

“Roadhog,” he said, hysteria cutting through his attempt to regulate his voice and speak calmly. “We gotta bunch chrome domes here.” He thought about the rows upon rows of omnics sitting calmly in the dark of the cargo hold and shivered, goosebumps crawling up the flesh of his arms. “Creepy,” he said under his breath.

“Omnics?” Roadhog asked.

“I think so.” He hadn’t gotten a good enough look at them; for all he knew, they were standard, run-of-the-mill robots. Still, what was the difference? They were all cargo -- at least, he personally thought so, and whoever was sending omnics overseas appeared to agree. Or perhaps it was voluntary -- omnics weren’t human enough to get claustrophobic, and traveling as cargo had to be loads cheaper than being passengers on a conventional ferry.

Either way, Junkrat didn’t care. He just cared about making sure that the omnics didn’t get _out_ of the cargo hold. He didn’t need a bunch of robots investigating why a dirt-smeared Junker, who was very obviously not a crew member, was on board their ship.

“Get that bike over here, ‘Hog,” he said. They parked the chopper on the hatch, effectively sealing the omnics in.

He should have felt better knowing that they were safe, but the knowledge that there were still bots beneath his feet made his skin crawl. He squirmed, trying to shake off the willies. “Wish we coulda just blown ‘em up.” He knew that this was wishful thinking -- sinking the ship while on board was _probably_ not the wisest decision -- but still. A man could dream.

“I’m uncomfortable too,” Roadhog responded, addressing the crux of his statement.

“Really?” Junkrat said, tilting his head in curiosity. “Ya don't look like it.”

Roadhog simply looked at Junkrat. His mask was as expressionless as ever. Junkrat was, once again, struck by how challenging it was to read someone who never showed his face. Coupled with a reticent nature, Roadhog's lack of visible facial expressions made it difficult for Junkrat to pick up on the subtleties of his emotions. It didn't help that Junkrat was oblivious to begin with and lacked a great deal of social intelligence.

“I don't like them any more than you do,” Roadhog pointed out. He sat down on the ground, and Junkrat followed suit, any thoughts of getting the ship moving again vanishing. “I'm the one who blew up the omnium, remember?”

Junkrat remembered. He got so caught up in his own prejudices that he never even considered how Roadhog felt. If anything, he had even more reason than Junkrat had to hate omnics -- they were the ones who had displaced him and started the whole chain of events that led to the formation of the Australian Liberation Front.

“Nah, yeah, of course ya do! You got robbed, lost yer pigs and all that. They fucked up both our lives, but I reckon you got more to be pissed about than I do.”

Roadhog looked at him for a long moment, and when he spoke, his voice sounded odd. “They didn’t fuck up your life. I did.”

Junkrat startled. “Wait, what? The heck are ya talkin’ about? You didn’t fuck nothin’ up -- you make my life _better!_ ” he said earnestly, desperate to impress this upon Roadhog. “Seriously, I ain’t pullin’ yer leg. I wouldn’t even _be_ here roight now if it weren’t for ya!”

A huff of air escaped the vents of Roadhog’s mask. “Yeah, I’m always saving your skin.”

Junkrat swatted at him. “I _meant_ that I wouldn’t be sittin’ on a ship on me way to Korea, havin’ the time of me life. But yeah, pretty sure I wouldn’t be alive either.” Scratch that, he _definitely_ wouldn’t be alive right now. He could think of half a dozen times where he would’ve died had Roadhog not been around. The time when his hand had been cut off was particularly vivid. “So really, haven’t got the faintest idea what yer talkin’ about.”

Roadhog went quiet again. "The omnium," he finally said. "You wouldn't be a Junker if I hadn't blown it up. None of us expected it to reach as far as it did. We created the apocalypse. I _am_ the apocalypse." Roadhog looked down at his hands, as if he could see the blood on them. It wasn't like Roadhog to feel remorse, and Junkrat suspected that his regret wasn't due to the deaths he caused ("Life is pain, so is death," as he had once told Junkrat) but more to the fact that the environment of his homeland had become so uninhabitable. Any chance of taking back his land and rearing pigs once more vanished the second the A.L.F. wiped the omnium off the map. And the lingering radiation affected them all -- it got into Roadhog’s lungs, and Junkrat had been told that it was the reason for his madness, which he preferred to call "genius."

But Junkrat had more important things to address than Roadhog's regret.

"Hold on, ya think my life is fucked up 'cause I'm a Junker?" He couldn't help but feel offended. Growing up in Junkertown and being a Junker was such an integral part of who he was, and it felt like a personal slight. "No, no, no, mate, it's not any of that! Omnics are how I lost the oldies, that's what I was talkin' about.” He paused, just for a split second. That was not something he liked to think about. He didn't remember much about his parents, but he _did_ remember what it felt like when they didn't come home one day. Not a pleasant memory.

He plowed on. “Not the whole bit about bein’ a Junker. What's so bad about that? Yer one too, ya big hypocrite!”

“Nothing's bad about it. But we wouldn't have needed to be Junkers if it weren't for the damage that I did.”

Junkrat didn’t understand why Roadhog had any regrets. Of course he didn’t regret any of the deaths, that made sense, but why feel bad about making the centre of Australia more inhospitable than it already was? They were survivors, they’d pulled through it just fine and had practically thrived in the nuclear wasteland. A little bit of radiation was nothing. They had their own community, and none of them cared if they lost some humanity on the way. They were human enough to each other.

Maybe it was that he didn’t remember anything about what it was like beforehand, so he couldn’t grasp missing that way of life. Maybe it was that he didn’t get just how bad the negative effects were. Either way, he had a hard time seeing what Roadhog’s point was.

“And what, y'think _I_ wouldn'ta done the same thing? Blown up an omnium and turned the Outback into a wasteland? It was _worth_ it! 'Sides, not like I had a bad time of it, growin' up in that kinda environment," he reasoned. "No different than if you hadn't done it.” He tilted his head as he reconsidered.”Well, maybe less scavengin', and no Junkertown to live in, but… y’know," he trailed off with a shrug.

Sure, he'd seen some fucked up shit in his life, but hadn't _everyone_? He didn't know that much about conventional society, besides the fact that it had a lot of stupid rules and "laws" that made him roll his eyes (he was _still_ convinced that he shouldn't have been imprisoned for killing those cops -- it was a survivalistic defence!), but he didn't think it could be all _that_ different from Junkertown: No one could possibly know with complete certainty what their next meal would be, and people died every day no matter where you lived. It was possible that his perception of life was dangerously skewed, but as far he was concerned, all of that was perfectly normal. He didn't let the negative things get to him, asides from the occasional recollection of the night he'd realised that he was alone and his parents weren't coming home. But that wasn't a common thought, and besides, he was _happy_. He was living the dream, traveling abroad without a care in the world, blowing things up and taking whatever his heart desired, all with a true blue, loyal partner at his side. What more could he ask for?

"The point is," Junkrat continued, "you didn't fuck anythin' up, least of all me. As a matter of fact, I'd say ya made the world a better place, takin' out all those bots in the process! _They're_ the ones to blame here. All that wouldn't've happened if they hadn't tried to nick our land in the first place." This was what it all came down to in the end: the omnics and the need to eradicate them.

Roadhog hummed, which Junkrat took as tacit agreement. He patted Roadhog's stomach affectionately, as if to say _don't even worry about it_. His mind began to wander, and he envisioned the omnium explosion as he leaned against Roadhog's side. He'd tried to ask Roadhog for details about how it had gone down, but he'd never gotten a full answer. Roadhog clearly preferred to keep those details private, at least for now, so he stopped pressing the matter. He wondered how they had destroyed the core itself. He imagined cannons would have done the trick.

“Are there cannons on this thing?” Junkrat asked.

Roadhog looked down at him. “It’s a cargo boat, not a pirate ship.”

“Shame,” Junkrat mused, rubbing his chin. “I feel like we’re pirates.”

Roadhog laughed, which was music to Junkrat’s ears after the heaviness of their conversation. “Arrghhh, matey,” he said.

Junkrat was completely and utterly tickled pink. He burst into delighted peals of laughter, and Roadhog joined in. The deep rumble of his laugh contrasted so sharply with Junkrat’s own high-pitched giggles, and the juxtaposition just made him lose it even more.

It took a good long while until they settled down. Junkrat’s stomach ached from laughter and his face hurt from being stretched so wide for so long, but he was content. He rested his head on Roadhog’s stomach, his grin relaxing into a lazy smile.

“We should get moving,” Roadhog finally said. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”

Junkrat stuck his tongue out, annoyed by the very suggestion, but he had to admit the truth in it. The longer they remained idle, the greater the chances of someone finding them. It wouldn’t look good if they were dallying alongside the stolen boat they were abandoning, especially when they were supposed to be two omnics on a mission to deliver a boatful of fellow robots to South Korea.

As they entered the pilothouse, Junkrat pointed out all of his hard work to Roadhog -- the splintered steel trap, one omnic with a mangled foot and a punctured chest, the other headless -- who nodded approvingly. With the two of their heads put together, they figured out how to read the holographic navigation map and got the ship moving.

Junkrat kicked back in the captain’s chair, propped his feet on the dash, and let autopilot take over. “Piece of cake!” he said.

He was overconfident. The weather grew hostile and they sailed straight into a storm, which interfered greatly with the autopilot system, and they quickly learned why the omnic captain and his first mate were necessary to steer the ship. The trip to South Korea took longer than it would have had the omnics been around to pilot, as neither Junkrat nor Roadhog knew anything about navigating a ship through rocky waters. After the squall died down and they spent a number of hours trying to correct their course and speed through the several hundred miles to their destination, they pulled into view of Busan.

Even in the distance, the port of Busan was beautiful, lush with greenery, spires towering behind scores of shipping vessels and wooden jetties. The salty scent of seawater and fish filled the air.

With a mechanical _ka-chunk_ , their dashboard locked up and the ship began guiding itself to the dock. Port pilots, who sailed out to meet the incoming ship, board it, and bring it into the harbour, had been replaced by automatic systems. The ship confirmed the number of passengers aboard it: a given number of omnics in the cargo hold and two crew members, the same amount that had left Shimonoseki. The heat source the captain and his first mate had emitted was replaced by that of Junkrat and Roadhog, the omnics’ mechanical bodies gone cold in death. With no additional passengers detected, the cargo ship began guiding itself to its assigned docking point.

It eased up alongside the pier, where several dock workers -- humans and omnics alike -- began the process of mooring it. Junkrat and Roadhog whispered furiously to each other, trying to figure out how they were getting off the ship.

They decided to just go for it. They ducked out of view as they lowered the gangway, the dead omnic propped awkwardly in the captain’s chair, and ran to the motorcycle as the ramp lowered onto the pier with a groan. A handful of dock workers were in the process of climbing on board, presumably to assist in unloading the omnics and whatever other cargo was in the hold, when the chopper came thundering down the ramp.

“Get outta our way, ya drongos!” Junkrat hollered. The workers dove aside, one or two of them leaping straight into the water, and they tore off, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of exhaust and the sound of tires squealing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Japan was a short arc, but we're about to enter a meaty arc that's my favorite of the story, so I v much hope you guys enjoy it too!


	5. Chapter 5

Busan, South Korea was a drastic, if welcome, change from Tokyo, Japan. A slogan on the side of a bus declared it as "Busan: The City of Tomorrow," which Junkrat found particularly hilarious given the lack of modernity compared to the high tech, urban scene of Tokyo. While the seaside metropolis had undergone renovations in the past few decades, the sleek metallic towers that had sprung up looked out of place next to the tiny, colourful houses and historic statues that dotted the city. After leaving the beachfront districts and high rise skyscrapers behind, they picked their way through a maze of winding streets in search of a place to sleep and store their motorcycle when it wasn't in use. Their options were limited, progress impeded by steep streets that were punctuated with staircases and alleys too narrow to fit both the chopper and its sidecar. They weren't going to get as much use out of the bike as they had in Tokyo if they stationed their hideaway in this area of the city. Neither of them minded all that much, though -- it just meant they would have to be more creative when it came to plotting their getaways.

“At least it’s a pretty view,” Roadhog commented.

"Yeah, s'different," Junkrat agreed, studying the mural of a skyline that spanned the side of a bright blue shanty house. "I like it!" The district they had stumbled across was a vibrant, artistic community, and Junkrat itched to contribute to it. He made a mental note to pick up some spray paint so that he could tag buildings as he saw fit. Then, not trusting his brain to retain the thought, he told Roadhog, who assured him that he would add this item to their agenda and remember it in case it slipped his mind. There had been too many incidents where Junkrat had forgotten something and needed a reminder. His short term memory was dreadful; if he didn’t actively work to commit something to memory, the chances of it occurring to him later were slim. If he _tried_ , it wasn’t bad -- it was why he was so good at engineering all of his devices. The subject fascinated him, so he had committed himself to learning all the minutiae of wiring things together and the properties of various explosives.

But he just didn’t _care_ enough to exert all that energy to concentrate on things all of the time.

After scouring the quieter districts of Busan, they came across an abandoned neighbourhood opposite what appeared to be the richer parts of the city. Half of the buildings were demolished, leaving nothing behind but rubble, but there were several still-standing hovels littered with graffiti. They picked a relatively unassuming place that blended in with the landscape: brightly coloured, peeling paint, tags from local gangs spray painted on the siding. The shack was painted in the same yellow of Roadhog's shoulder armor and Junkrat's varied devices, and it felt like home. They parked the motorcycle behind the house, well out of view of anyone who happened to pass by, and shifted some refuse around to make it less conspicuous. Just in case.

Bad posture and a wide stance meant that Junkrat’s height went unnoticed, but Roadhog had to duck significantly and edge in at an angle to squeeze inside. The interior of the building was a dump, but it was no worse than their past living conditions. They had electricity, at least: Busan was one of the first mainstays in South Korea to convert to free solar electricity to power their city.

“Home, sweet home!” Junkrat said brightly. Roadhog dropped their omnipresent duffel bag while Junkrat removed his RIP-tire. They both shedded the rest of their gear and promptly passed out for two hours, taking a well-earned nap.

It was evening when they arose, the skyline tinged a burnt orange, and they ventured out in the city to acquire food, money, or whatever they could get their greedy hands on.

Acquiring their startup funds for South Korea was a team effort. Roadhog bumped into a businesswoman, causing her to drop her purse. Junkrat rifled through it while she stammered out an apology, all eyes on the massive mountain of a man who towered over her. Her wallet was stuffed with coloured bills, mostly green and red notes in increments of 10,000 and 5,000. Clearly the South Korean won operated under a greatly different system than yen, which seemed to be roughly on par with the Australian dollar.

Junkrat saw the opportunity to supplement their earnings by lifting a second wallet from a tourist's half unzipped backpack (“Come _on_ , that’s just askin’ to be robbed! Stupid tourists don’t change, no matter the country, eh?”), and he seized the opportunity. He was delighted to find bright yellow bills inside: his favourite colour, _and_ it was the most expensive at a denomination of 50,000.

They found a tented street stall -- pojangmacha, the vendor called it upon welcoming them -- and sat down on the narrow, creaking benches. After studying the prices on the signs, Roadhog slid across several banknotes from one of the wallets. The vendor was remarkably pleasant towards the two, admittedly scary-looking, shirtless Australians who were hungrily eyeing his wares. He spoke some English and cheerfully named each of the dishes as he served them.

After confirming that there was no meat in them, Roadhog favoured the dumplings (“So-mandu,” the vendor said). Junkrat, on the other hand, immediately zeroed in on the skewers of panko-crusted cutlets. He dimly heard the name, donkkaseu, but he didn’t care about the attempt to educate him on the local food, he just cared that it was _delicious_.

“What is this, pork?” he said through a mouthful of meat. “Oh, Roadhog, mate, ya got no idea what yer missin’ over here!” He ripped off another savage bite.

“Stop,” Roadhog warned him. Junkrat _still_ had a hard time wrapping his mind around Roadhog’s vegetarianism.

“What, it’s _good_!” He swallowed and grinned. “Can’t help it if I like pork, can I? Speakin’ of which, think that’ll be on the menu tonight? Just a _lil’_ taste?” He snickered and nudged Roadhog with his elbow.

Roadhog tilted away from him. Junkrat leaned over further to continue elbowing him.

Roadhog shifted down a seat, and Junkrat fell off his stool in his attempt to follow.

Roadhog laughed lowly, and it was quite clearly directed at him, not with him. Junkrat couldn’t be too mad about it when he loved the sound of Roadhog’s laughter so much. His scowl was good-natured as he righted himself.

The nights were getting colder as they entered December, and Junkrat shivered involuntarily. He was used to cold nights in the Australian Outback, but they were north of the Equator now, and this was a different kind of chill. This was the chill of an unseasonably temperate fall giving way to winter. Rosa’s jumpers were going to come in handy.

Junkrat placed a hand on Roadhog’s arm as they left the pojangmacha behind, testing for evidence that Roadhog was chilly as well, and found goosebumps. He didn’t want to let go, so instead he wrapped both of his arms around Roadhog’s bicep, even if it made walking more awkward than it should have been. The body heat helped.

“Hey.” Junkrat’s stage whisper could barely even be called that. “Think I found our first heist.” He nodded to a storefront that was advertising mink blankets, several of their products displayed on racks outside of the store. “Never understood why shops do that. I mean, I get yer supposed to go inside and pay, but puttin’ it all out there is just _askin’_ to get robbed. I mean, it’s practically a public service, we’re just givin’ them what they want! Bloody idiots, the lot of them.“

“Cameras,” Roadhog said, looking up. Junkrat followed suit, and he could just make out the wall-mounted camera concealed in the shadows of the storefront. “Okay, so they got cameras. But it’s the principle of the thing, don’t leave yer merchandise outside! Cameras ain’t gonna stop someone from knockin’ off some blankets. Just means they’re more likely to be recognised later. They still get the goods.” He didn’t know if he was still referring to the two of them or criminals in general, but he did know that he was spinning off on a tangent.  “So _really_ , why even bother if yer not gonna have any actual security to stop it before it happens--” He had a hard time shutting up and holding back the proverbial word vomit once he got going, so he was grateful when Roadhog interrupted him.

“Go take care of the camera.”

“Take care of it,” he repeated. Okay, that was a mission he could focus on. He could put aside his disgust for street-displaying store owners and devote his attention to the task at hand.

He studied the camera from afar -- out of its field of view, too far to interfere with the merchandise --  as it swept the area, picking out its blind spots. “There,” he said suddenly. He snapped open the flap of the canvas bag he kept around his waist, pulling out the permanent marker that he used to draw x’ed out smiley faces on all of his grenades. Stealth was far from his strong suit, but an attempt was made as he sidled up from the right, slipping into the narrow space between the wall and the end of the camera’s line of sight. He stood up straight, gaining several inches in the process, and reached up his left hand. The marker squeaked as he coloured in the camera’s lens, blacking out its vision.

“Eh?” he said, raising his eyebrows at Roadhog, who gave him a thumbs up of approval.

They worked quickly, scooping up as many of the blankets they could carry. They came in a multitude of colours and patterns, but they were all that same, silky mink texture.  Junkrat tied a bright orange blanket around his neck like a cape, marveling at how it was softer than any furry animal he’d ever caught in one of his steel traps, before dashing off to make their mad escape.

They both bore bulky loads of blankets in their arms as they made the trek back to their abandoned neighborhood, slowing down once they were a safe distance away from the store.

They found the hole in the fence that was their entrance, which was poorly covered with a faded green striped blanket, and slipped through it. Roadhog had had to slightly widen it by bending in the edges of the severed fence, but really, they were lucky that it was as big as it was to start with.

“Not a bad haul for a first day’s work!” Junkrat said. He spotted their yellow house first and led the way. “Maybe tomorrow we can do some _research_ , learn more about that om--”

“Shut up,” Roadhog interrupted.

Junkrat made an offended noise. “Oi! I’m not even _doin’_ anything--”

“I said. Shut. Up.” The terseness in Roadhog’s voice made him clamp his mouth shut -- obviously something was wrong, and when he glanced around, he saw the reason for Roadhog’s sudden abruptness.

They weren’t alone. Several houses down from their own hovel, an unkempt, middle-aged women stared from a doorway. Her appearance was disheveled, and she looked like she hadn’t washed up in weeks, a situation that Junkrat and Roadhog were all too familiar with.

They, on the other hand, looked like the criminals they were. Sure, they were cleaner than she was, given the storm they had sailed through, but their arms were laden with too many goods to plausibly be acquired through legal means. Their general apparel didn’t help dispel any notions otherwise, nor did the grenades strapped to Junkrat’s chest and the hook and spool of chain stored on Roadhog’s waist.

Nobody moved for several long seconds, until she gave them a curt nod. Roadhog returned it, and she disappeared inside a mint green house with smashed windows.

“What just happened?” Junkrat asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“I guess we’re not the only squatters. Think she’s a former resident?” It was a good question, and it got Junkrat wondering just how many evictees had refused to leave their condemned neighborhood and lived in the ruins of their livelihood. He wondered how many homeless people had taken up residence post-abandonment, seeing an opportunity to get off the streets.

“No idea, mate. Least it don’t look like she’s about to call the cops on us, yeah?”

Roadhog nodded. “Can’t do that without implicating herself.”

The nod was a wordless agreement to keep quiet. There was no way of telling the circumstances of anyone’s living arrangements, but they all would get in trouble if they exposed one another. There was an unusual solidarity between people living in illegal or rundown places, and for a moment, Junkrat had a pang of loneliness for Junkertown. He had been one of many living in a cobbled-together city of ramshackle shanties and lean-tos, although many of its residents weren’t fond of him and found him to be an utter nuisance. Still, he had always felt a kinship with the other Junkers, even those whom he wasn’t on friendly terms with. It was a community, it was _home_ , and sometimes he missed it dearly.

“Never woulda thought we’d have neighbors,” Junkrat mused as they entered their own illegal domain. It was kind of an exciting prospect. “We should invite her over for a cuppa.”

Roadhog was less trusting. “No,” he said firmly, and that was the end of that. “Live and let live.”

Junkrat exhaled. "If ya say so," he said. He stretched out on the ground, burying himself in a tangled mound of mink blankets. The jumpers could wait until morning. He didn’t particularly want to expose his bare chest to the chilly air after having wrapped a blanket around himself.

He had only been _slightly_ joking when he'd quipped about wanting pork to be on the menu for tonight. Roadhog was on his mind all the time, frequently in a sexual manner, and he could feel the desperate need to get laid building inside of him. He hadn't gone so long without a regular orgasm since he first embarked on his adventures with Roadhog, when the air between them had been too taut for him to get away with jerking off. He managed here and there later on, and he had indulged a handful of times since that first kiss with Roadhog, the night they'd escaped prison. But he wasn't content with flying solo anymore, his hormones had been raging since the first time he'd _seriously_ made out with Roadhog, and not being able to bring his attraction to fruition was becoming increasingly infuriating. He had never felt more sexually frustrated than after Roadhog's rejection of him, and he'd tried to stamp out his urges -- but Roadhog hadn't shut him down when he'd commented about "just a _little_ taste" tonight, and it had brought all of his desires back to the forefront of his imagination.

The small, bedraggled woman quieted those clamoring thoughts, however. It didn't feel right to put a move on Roadhog with the image of her still fresh in his mind, and since his brain was no longer screaming _do it, do it, do it, just jump his bones already!_ he decided to leave it for another day.

Besides, he was _cold_. He wriggled his blanket-laden body closer to Roadhog and tried to toss one of the twisted blankets over the both of them. It barely covered half of Roadhog's belly.

"You tried," Roadhog told him, patting his head.

 _Tried_ wasn't good enough for him, and Junkrat pushed himself up to a seated position so that he could drape his body over Roadhog's stomach. "There!" he said, satisfied. "See? We can both fit under one blanket if we _really_ try."

"More like you're the blanket," Roadhog said, and Junkrat laughed. He fell asleep like that, half dangling off of Roadhog's body.

At some point in the night, Roadhog pushed him off to take a leak, and Junkrat scrunched his nose up in displeasure. He sleepily reached out for Roadhog, brushing against the ground as he searched for his missing partner. His hand brushed against something furry, and he thought it was one of the mink blankets, in his half conscious state.

Then it moved. It took a few moments for his groggy brain to register this, then his eyes flew open. There was a large lump of _something_ next to him, about a foot long, and when it darted a few paces away from him, he involuntarily screamed. Conflicting primal instincts clashed in his head, one telling him to shrink away from the threat, and the other telling him to disable it before it could hurt him. He lunged for the creature, grabbing it in his hands.

Roadhog banged into the room to investigate, still refastening his belt buckle as he flicked the light on. A rat squirmed in Junkrat's hands, larger than any he had ever seen before. Roadhog put it best: "What the hell is that."

“It’s a rat,” Junkrat said. He brought it closer to his face for inspection, keeping it just out of reach so it couldn’t claw him.

Roadhog snorted. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Fuck you, Watson,” Junkrat retorted. As he squinted at the rat, he saw that it was missing an eye, and a sudden surge of affection washed over him. He felt an affinity with the feral creature, and the fact that the rat’s missing body part was on the right side of his face only affirmed that.

“No, but look, ‘Hog, it’s me!” he exclaimed, holding up the still-thrashing rat. “We should keep him. Much cuter than that stupid robot.”

“No it’s not,” Roadhog said bluntly.

Well, Roadhog _was_ the authority on all things cute and cuddly. Junkrat knew deep in his heart that Kiki _had_ been cute, but he was loathe to admit it after the revelation that she was an omnic. Still, he genuinely thought the rat was cute in its own beastly way.

He looked at the rat in his hand. It hissed and tried to bite him. “He’s _perfect_ ,” he said, the utmost wonder in his eyes. He groped around for a scrap of food and held it up to the rat, who stopped thrashing and sniffed at it, whiskers twitching. “Okay, but ya get where I’m comin’ from, roight? This is a proper pet, like Piglet was, not some stupid omnic! I say we keep him. Think we can get him to steal stuff for us too?”

“A rat -- the animal, not you -- is nowhere near the level of a pig’s intelligence, never mind a robot that tries to pass as human.”

Junkrat hummed in suspicion. “And you’re sure about that? Bet I can tame him, at least.” He dropped the rat to the floor, and it scurried behind a pile of rubbish in the corner of the hovel and disappeared from sight. “He’ll be back,” he said confidently.  “We have a bond. Watch, we come back tonight, he’ll still be here.”

“Fifty bucks.”

“You don’t believe me!” Junkrat said, scandalised.

“No, I don’t,” Roadhog agreed.

Junkrat puffed his chest out and stood up, drawing himself up to his full height. “Alright, you’re on. Fifty bucks. Hell, I’d wager 50,000 of whatever these are!” Junkrat reached for one of the yellow 50,000 bills and snapped it taut between his hands.

“Won. Isn’t that about the same?”

“I haven’t the foggiest!”

They got ready for the day, pulling on their heavy jumpers. A fire burned inside Junkrat, determined to prove that he could forge a bond between the rat and himself.

“Actually, I think it’s less,” Roadhog said as they prepared to head outside.

“What?”

“The won.”

“Who cares? I’m gonna win!” He paused. “Win the won!” His voice rose several octaves in his glee.

He was still cackling uproariously as Roadhog shoved him out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the green striped blanket mentioned in this chapter is an actual thing! “Green striped blankets are a major sign of abandonment. They represent low security and seem to turn things invisible for most of the population.” http://www.asiapundits.com/10-dos-20-donts-urban-exploration-korea/


	6. Chapter 6

The first, and only, item on their agenda was to begin soaking up as much information as they could about Korea’s omnic problem. It took Junkrat approximately fifteen seconds after entering the heart of downtown Busan to immediately forget about their sole objective.

His head swiveled from side to side as he drank in their surroundings, taking in all the food stalls and pop up shops. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said, drawing up short. One of the stalls looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite figure out why. “Didn’t I see one of these back in ‘Straya?” He thought he remembered the bright green counters and lurid pink and yellow signs that had caught his attention, much as they did now.

“Boba,” he enunciated, looking at the English words on the sign beneath their corresponding hangul. “What is it, Japanese? No, no, that’s where we just were. Chinese? Wait, no, that’s not it.” He tapped his chin. “Where... are we?” He recalled the city name, but the country was escaping him at the moment. Roadhog gave him a moment to collect his thoughts. Then, right as he was about to supply the answer, Junkrat burst out, “Korea!” He thrust a triumphant finger in the air. “Is it Korean, then?” he asked, finally finishing his initial question.

“I think it’s Taiwanese,” Roadhog responded.

“Eh, it's all the same.” Junkrat couldn’t tell the difference between Korean characters and the Japanese ones he had grown accustomed to seeing in Tokyo. This was the primary reason why the signals had gotten crossed in his brain, leading to his temporary lapse in recall of their whereabouts.

“That's like saying Aussies and Kiwis are the same.”

Junkrat tilted his head as he compared the statements. He conceded the point. “Fair enough. Well, whatever it is, I wanna try it.” He pulled out one of the wallets from Roadhog’s back pocket (“new country, new currency!”), and slammed two of the largest bills on the counter.

“I want however much this’ll get me,” he announced.

If the cashier understood English, she didn’t let on, but the money spoke worlds. Pointing at each of the varieties, she said something that Junkrat took to mean “one of each?”

“All of them!” he said, throwing his arms wide.

He lined the cups in a row, all light pastel colours with those intriguing pearls on the bottom. He had fully intended to rapid-fire knock them all back, but then he tasted the first one. The pale brown drink itself was delicious -- sweet but not _too_ sweet --  and then the tapioca balls hit. His body stilled and his eyes went wide as he chewed, and Roadhog laughed at the expression on his face.

“Hooley dooley,” he breathed, staring at the plastic cup as if he was seeing it for the first time. “Bloody _beautiful_.” He was willing to give the other flavors a chance, but the deceptively light yellow drink turned out to be a sour lemon. He made a face and batted it off the table.

“Two more!” he said, holding up two fingers.

The cashier waited expectantly for payment as Junkrat dumped the water out of his canteen and filled it with milk tea. Roadhog stepped in to pay when it became evident that Junkrat had no intention of forking over more money. He hadn’t drunk the rest of the flavors he’d initially bought, so he didn’t see the sense in paying for replacement drinks. Had it been any other day, Roadhog would have gone along with it. They’d stolen pettier things before.

But if they were going to try to scoop out some information about Korea’s regular omnic invader, they needed to keep a low profile.

Well, as low a profile as two very large men, one with a pig-faced mask and one with a peg leg, in contrasting handknit jumpers could be.

Taking swigs from the canteen was considerably more challenging than sipping through a wide straw. The first attempt sent the boba straight down his gullet, and he gagged until Roadhog thumped his back, causing him to hack them up.

“Shoulda stolen some of those straws too,” he said, massaging his throat. He screwed the cap back onto his canteen and holstered it.

“We'll get some on the way back,” Roadhog told him.

They stopped in front of a newsstand. It was a small stand that was lined with the latest issues of the city's daily papers and was manned by an elderly gentleman who had likely been selling newspapers for the past fifty years. Chained to the checkout counter was a device that Junkrat would have killed a man for. Shaped rather like a square magnifying glass, it served as a universal translator between the input language and the desired output. Tuning it to translate to English, Junkrat watched as the scanned Korean characters changed to English words on the device's screen. It was far from a perfect translation, given that it was a literal interpretation of the foreign language, but it was good enough for him to get the gist of the newspaper articles.

“So yer tellin’ me that if I had this thing in Japan, I could've known what I was drinkin'? Wouldn't've chugged that green tea if I'd been able to, y'know, read what it said on the can." He stuck his tongue out, recalling the vile taste as he leafed through the pages of the day's _Busan Ilbo_. "That one," he said suddenly, jabbing his finger at a blurry picture of a massive omnic standing knee-deep in water. He thrust the paper and its device, which rattled as the chain pulled taut, at Roadhog. He wasn't going to deal with the hassle of actually _reading_ if he could just listen to Roadhog read to him.

He leaned his elbows against the counter and listened raptly, chin in his hands. Roadhog read the article out loud, filling in the gaps in the translation as needed.

“Citizens prepare for impending onslaught: Local authorities have detected the presence of Yongary, Korea’s local omnic menace, in Busan’s bay. The military’s top scientists have analyzed data from previous encounters and it is predicted Yongary will resurface on the 23rd after two years of dormancy. With new advances in technology, all units of the South Korean army are prepared to defend against its anticipated adaptations and upgrades. The omnic's last appearance is notable due to its disruption of the Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army's drone control networks. The past two years have been spent rebuilding this sector’s defence systems. The country’s most promising gamers have been drafted, and hopes are high that they will lead to the defeat of Yongary, Monster from the Deep. MEKA units from Seoul are on notice to aid Busan’s unit against the colossal omnic's impending appearance. Citizens are urged to remain calm. Those within Yongary’s predicted range of impact should fortify their houses and prepare for evacuation.”

“Huh.” Junkrat processed this information. “The 23rd? I wouldn’t be that sure about it. Omnics are unpredictable, the sneaky little bastard -- or, heh, not so little -- could come out any time he wants.”

Roadhog was less skeptical. “They’re sneaky, but they’re still machines. If it’s been returning at regular intervals, it’s not about to break that pattern. It’s clockwork.”

“Ah, good point.” It was a valid observation. Junkrat supposed it _could_ still surprise them by surfacing early, but if it was following a fixed schedule, then the chances of that happening were considerably less than an omnic who attacked sporadically.

“Okay, so all that really tells us is that we’ve got, what, a fortnight to--” Roadhog cleared his throat in warning, and Junkrat choked back the rest of the sentence, _‘to figure out how we’re gonna hack this thing.’_ It was physically painful. “--to-- ’til it comes back,” he finished. It was a lame end to the phrase, but they didn’t know how much English the newsstand’s owner spoke, and the man was just on the other side of the counter, eyeing the device in his hand. He seemed worried that Roadhog would rip it off the chain. It wasn’t an irrational concern.

Still, Roadhog was smart enough to know that they probably shouldn’t discuss their plans within anyone’s earshot, unlike Junkrat, who didn’t think that far ahead before he said what was on his mind.

Junkrat tapped the newspaper. “Guess we should probably take this one back with us, yeah?” They might not have been able to read it once they were separated from the translating device, but the pictures could prove useful. Junkrat rolled up the newspaper, stuck it under his arm, and was about to walk away with it when the man behind the counter cleared his throat.

Junkrat stopped and looked up at Roadhog for an answer, bewilderment written all over his face.

“You have to pay first,” Roadhog clarified.

“It’s not free?” Junkrat asked, thoroughly confused.

Newspaper and scrap metal were the only resources that they had in surplus in Junkertown -- it was used as kindling for fires, stuffed in a sack as a makeshift pillow, wrapped around trinkets to keep them out of sight of the rest of the scavengers. He hadn't questioned its existence -- he guessed he'd always assumed that the few Junkers who made it out of the Outback had picked free newspapers up in bulk before returning. How else could there be so _much_ of it? It hadn't even occurred to him that the papers were likely scavenged from recycling, after other people had paid for and discarded them.

“Alrighty then,” he said, deciding to roll with it. He forked over the money, and they set off. “Been payin’ for so many things lately,” Junkrat commented, “like an honest person! It’s _weird_ , mate!” His pace slowed as he surveyed the paper he had just bought.

“There are things we won’t be paying for,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat perked up at that and trotted to catch up with Roadhog. “Yeah? Whatcha got in mind, big guy?”

"We're gonna need more information than what we can get from this," Roadhog said, gesturing at the newspaper.

“Roight, roight, 'course! Can't really do much if we don't know what kinda upgrades it's gonna have. So, how we gonna get the scoop?" He was normally the one who came up with plans, he was the mastermind behind all of increasingly elaborate schemes they’d devised, but he wanted to see where Roadhog was going with this.

"Electronics," Roadhog said. "We need to get a computer and internet access."

Junkrat grinned. "Sure we do! I mean, we'd need one anyway eventually, wouldn't we? To use the god program." There was a heavy silence as they both considered that they had never discussed how, exactly, they were going to deploy the god program. Junkrat had expressed his fantasy about controlling Korea's colossal sea monster of an omnic and using it as a vessel for their god program, a giant beacon that could infect all the robots within its radius and cause them to commit suicide. Yongary's reprogrammed artificial intelligence would still give it free will, which would have been a concern, had it been any other robot they were using as a host. Between the general malignancy associated with the world's active god programs and the fact that Yongary, sans brainwashing, was already hellbent on destroying Korea, the massive omnic would undoubtedly be pliant to their suggestions. It was only a small step to go from actively destroying Korea and its human inhabitants, to infecting the country's loyal omnics and forcing them to annihilate themselves.

But it was anyone's guess as to _how_ they would achieve that. The god program's source code was on a USB, but getting it integrated into the omnic's system was a problem in and of itself, not to mention the fact that its code would need to be altered to include the central idea of "wipe out every omnic within your reach."

"Let's just... see what we can get first, why don't we?" Junkrat said.  

"Hmm," Roadhog grunted in agreement.

They spent the rest of the day idly wandering Busan, snagging meals from unsuspecting street vendors as they scouted out the perfect place to infiltrate. They decided on a small but high-end shop in the basement of a multi-business building, accessible from the outside by a flight of stairs that led to the subterranean shop. From the view of the footpath, it was partially concealed from sight by the protective brick fence that kept hapless pedestrians from falling in. Most people didn't think to look for a store below street level, and they would have missed it if it hadn't been for the neon signs that advertised the place, helpful arrows pointing at the staircase.

They circled around the side of the building to scope out its security and discovered a narrow window -- it was small, but Junkrat, for all of his height, was thin as a rail. It seemed promising. With Roadhog's shoulders to sit on, Junkrat could reach the security camera, and he unscrewed it just enough so that a well-aimed projectile could knock it askew upon their return after business hours.

On their walk home, Junkrat remembered their bet from earlier in the day, and he ran ahead of Roadhog to see if their little nighttime visitor had returned.

Junkrat impatiently waited until Roadhog caught up with him -- he needed him to witness whatever lay inside, so Roadhog couldn’t accuse him of lying -- and shouldered open the door. He caught a glimpse of a shadow scurrying across the floor as the door swung open, and he quickly smacked the light switch to catch it before it disappeared into oblivion. “Aha!” he crowed, pumping his fists in the air. “I win! I win! I _toldja_ he'd come back, and look, he brought friends!” Maybe normal people wouldn't be quite so thrilled upon finding out the place where they slept was infested with rats, but it gave him the satisfaction of winning a bet.

The rat and his two new companions disappeared into a dark corner, and Junkrat investigated. He’d found their home, a nest woven out of rubbish and strips of old bedsheets. The smallest rat settled into the centre of it, and Junkrat looked between the three of them: large, medium, and small.

“Is this yer _family_?” he said, thrilled to pieces. The rat did not answer. He squatted down beside them, propping his elbows on his knees. “He has a family, ‘Hog, look!”

“Oh, goodie.”

Junkrat picked the biggest rat up -- _his_ rat -- and immediately set it back down again when it hissed at him. “Okay, y’don’t like being picked up. I can respect that.” He had spent most of his life being touch-starved, and it was something he paradoxically both shied away from and initiated. He liked to touch other people; he was constantly reaching out to other Junkers and trying for physical contact with them, his skewed sense of social conventions rendering him unable to tell when it was and wasn’t appropriate to do so. This probably had something to do with why he alienated so many people in his community, and why so many of them considered him a freak. And yet, when someone else touched him first, it made him jumpy. It was so often not pleasant -- the lingering touch before he was shoved away, the hand on his shoulder that forced him to his knees. It never stopped him from continuing to try and be friendly towards the perpetrators, but it did make him twitchy whenever they were the ones to first make physical contact with him.

It was the same with Roadhog, at first. Their initial interactions had been anything but friendly, and for the longest time, Roadhog had only touched Junkrat violently. Now, his shoves were affectionate. There were still moments where Junkrat startled when he felt Roadhog’s unexpected hand on his head or his shoulder, but he quickly relaxed. Touching Roadhog felt so _right_ , so natural, and to have it so easily reciprocated meant the world to him.

Junkrat hoped that the feral rat had the same kind of bond with his rat wife.

“I'm gonna call you Skewer,” he announced.

Roadhog looked up from where he was polishing his hook. “Why?”

“Like a rat skewer! You ever eat those before? They’re not bad.”

Roadhog stared at him. “What is with you and naming animals after food,” he said. “You wanted to name Piglet ‘Bacon’ too.”

Junkrat shrugged. “S’all I know, really. That’s what they all are in the end, ain’t they?” Living in the Australian Outback, Junkers viewed animals as nothing more than food. He had tried to keep a dingo as a pet when he was seven years old and had woken up to find it roasting over an open fire. It had been a formative day for him. One of the older Junkers had lectured him about wasting food by trying to domesticate it, and he learned his lesson.

Roadhog was quiet for a few moments as he gazed at him. He crossed the room to sit next to Junkrat and pulled him close.

Junkrat made a noise of surprise, which was promptly smothered by Roadhog’s jumper. He had expected a chastising remark about how not all animals had to become food, not this sudden display of sympathy.

"What's all this about, ya big lug?" he asked, voice muffled by the thick wool.

"Your life."

"What's wrong with me life?" Junkrat twisted his head so that he could breathe, cheek resting on Roadhog's chest. "Oh, because I think animals are food? That's the circle of life, mate. Ya had pigs, y’should know all about it!"

“I didn’t _eat_ my pigs,” Roadhog pointed out. “It wasn’t that kind of farm. They had names.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember Ink. Always running out of the pen. What were some of the others?” Roadhog’s grip on him loosened, and he twisted around to lay his head on the swell of Roadhog’s belly.

“Snoop Hogg was one.” Junkrat snickered. They’d found a portable radio in Australia and discovered a channel devoted to classic rap and pop rock. They’d grown to appreciate a few artists. It was hard, leaving the battered old radio behind, but they could only bring so much overseas. “Ink’s sister’s name was Ivy, but I called her Ballpoint most of the time.”

“Okay, I’ve _got_ to hear the reason behind that one.”

“It was just her pen name. ”

It was a lame pun by most anyone's standards, but there were three levels of meaning behind the joke -- three! -- and Junkrat thought it was the cleverest thing he had ever heard.

He could sense Roadhog's pleased smile from behind his mask as he laughed for longer than he should have.

That night, Roadhog fell asleep before he did, on his back and snoring, like always. Junkrat dragged Roadhog’s hand onto his chest, tracing the letters on his rings until he finally drifted off.


	7. Chapter 7

He knew it was a dream right from the start. He knew it was a dream, and that was the cruelest part of it. His traitorous brain couldn’t give him even a few short moments of blissful delirium. No, he was fully cognisant of the fact that he was not actually being fucked, no matter how real it felt in his dream. He’d yet to see Roadhog’s dick, but he’d spent enough time fantasising about it, enough time staring at the bulge in his pants and dreaming of x-ray vision, that he felt like he could accurately picture it.

He -- or rather, his dream self, the lucky sonovabitch -- closed his eyes so that he could focus his attentions, concentrating on nothing else but the sensation of Roadhog filling his mouth. Later, he’d marvel at how _real_ the dream Roadhog’s thick cock felt, so solid and lifelike as it slid down his throat. It only intensified the aching urge he had every waking moment of his life, the desperate desire for Roadhog to just _fuck_ him.

The dream Roadhog pulled away from him to pick him up. His fantasy of Roadhog coming in his mouth went unfulfilled, even in his dreams. He couldn’t be disappointed for too long, as Roadhog hoisted him up, sandwiching Junkrat’s dick between their stomachs.

Junkrat could _feel_ the friction, his dream self thrusting against Roadhog’s ample belly. He got lost in the rhythm, the blurring image of the dream replaced by nothing but pure carnal sensation. The rocking of his hips was intoxicating. The picture disappeared, dream Roadhog and all, as the pleasure mounted. It consumed him, and--

He woke up to sticky shorts and a leg slung over Roadhog’s thigh.

“Nice dream?” Roadhog said, amusement in his voice.

It was with a mild degree of horror that Junkrat realised he’d been humping Roadhog’s leg in his sleep. He released the arm that he had been clinging to and rolled onto his back. “Yeah, actually, thanks fer askin’.” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then craned his neck to grin up at Roadhog. “What say ya to makin’ it a reality? Might take a few for the ol’ sticka dynamite to be good to go again--” Roadhog snorted with laughter at the bad euphemism. If Junkrat hadn’t been totally sure that it would kill the mood entirely and reduce them both to fits of giggles, he would have made a quip about getting ready to explode. “--but that don’t mean I can’t get _you_ started.” He wet his lips, glancing down at Roadhog’s crotch.

“Later.” Roadhog stood up and cracked his neck. “We have to leave if we want to do this tonight.”

“But-- but--” he floundered for the words. “Come _on_ , I just wanna have some fun…”

“And you already did.” He laughed as Junkrat scowled up at him.

Junkrat groped for a bottle of water and a cloth to clean himself up with, grumbling the whole while.

“The sign said they open at 7 A.M.”

“Oh, is that what it said?”

“So we have a short window.”

They had planned on leaving for their heist long after the sun set, around the time that the last of the late-night bars closed and its patrons drunkenly staggered home. It left them with a few short hours before the early morning business owners arrived.

Junkrat left his grumpiness (“ _later_ ,” Roadhog had said, and he planned on holding him to that) and the RIP-tire behind. He rigged the place up with a multitude of well hidden explosives and traps on the tiniest sliver of a chance someone tried to enter their decrepit home. He wouldn’t be able to wriggle through the basement window with it strapped to his back, and it would have been dead weight regardless, given that he was going to be loaded down with electronics.

They were a few blocks away from their destination when Junkrat suddenly drew up short. “Wait, stop! Stop, stop, stop,” he said.

“What?” Roadhog’s hand automatically went to his hook, but he dropped it when he saw Junkrat on his hands and his knees in the gutter. “What did you find?” he amended.

Junkrat thrust a muddy fist in the air triumphantly, a bracelet gleaming in his grip. “I got me some bling! I knew I saw something shiny down there.” He wiped the grime off on his jumper. It was a good thing Rosa had chosen black for him, because he had taken to using it as an ever-present napkin. Roadhog’s cream-coloured jumper wasn’t as adept at hiding stains. “Ooooh!” he said upon finding that the bracelet glittered with polished silver and jewels.

“You _would_ hold up a heist because you found something shiny,” Roadhog grumbled.

“Hey!” Junkrat slipped it on over his bony wrist. “Don’t you judge me, you ‘ _ooh’_ over shiny things too!”

“I wouldn’t stop a heist to pick it up.”

“Yeah, ya say that, but what if it was, say, a pig thing. You would _definitely_ hold me up to pick up a piggy shaped... hair clip or somethin’. You’d look good in one of those,” he added. “We should look for one. Put it right by yer hair band thingo.” Junkrat liked Roadhog’s ponytail, and it could only be improved by more hair accessories.

“...I would,” Roadhog admitted.

“You would pick it up, or you would look good in it?”

“Both.” He touched his ponytail, as if envisioning what it would look like with a hair clip in it.

Junkrat’s face split into a grin. He loved it whenever Roadhog affirmed the things he said.

They hung back once they reached the electronics shop, staying out of the camera’s range. Junkrat popped out his frag launcher’s rack and filled it with heavy rocks, which he delightedly fired at the loosened camera until it fell off its perch.

He bent down low to look in the basement window that he was going to slide through. They hadn’t scoped out the alarm system, so if he could just pinpoint what they were going to swipe before they set off the alarms and had to act quickly….

“Uhh, ‘Hog,” he began. “About this break-in...”

“What, you’re getting cold feet? Chicken.”

“Oh, get stuffed, no-- it’s just that uh, someone’s beaten us to it.” He pointed. Roadhog bent down to see for himself. A slim Korean man with rimless glasses was working by torchlight, busy inspecting items before slipping them inside his backpack. He was dressed in all black and didn’t seem concerned about any alarms. If he was as intelligent as he looked, he had likely already disabled them.

“He looks like a professional,” Junkrat said. “Got himself in without a trace and everything. Think he might be interested in helpin’ us out?”

“No,” Roadhog said immediately. He went along with Junkrat’s plans the vast majority of the time, because they usually worked, in one bizarre way or another, and were always fun. But his sense of self-preservation was much higher than Junkrat’s. They had gotten screwed over by a suit the last time they had tried to partner up with someone.

“Oh, come on, what’s the harm in askin’?” Junkrat leaned in to get a better look, pressing his hands and nose against the glass of the window--

\--and promptly fell through it, the pane of glass easily popping out and sending him tumbling into the room. At least that answered the question of how the other man had broken in.

Everything was pandemonium for a few moments: the glass shattering beneath Junkrat, the beam of light going haywire as their fellow criminal fumbled with the torch, the front door giving way as Roadhog shouldered it open.

The room was flooded with light as Roadhog flipped the switch, and everyone blinked as their eyes got used to the glare. Upon recovering, both Roadhog and the Korean man went for their guns: one sleek and elegant, the other large and clunky, with cutesy stickers that still sparkled beneath a layer of dirt.

Junkrat bounded to his feet, wincing slightly as the cuts from the broken glass smarted.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s with the guns? We’re just like you, we’re all a buncha thieves here. We don’t mean no trouble!”

“Speak for yourself,” Roadhog grunted, his scrap gun still raised.

It was a standoff as the other man and Roadhog stared each other down. Junkrat laughed nervously, raising two pacifying hands in a last-ditch attempt to alleviate the volatile atmosphere.

“Heh, so eh, howsabout we all just… put the guns down? We can work together, strike up a mutually beneficial partnership, maybe? We can all walk out of here happy!”

After another calculating glance his way, the Korean man lowered his shaking hand, while Roadhog followed suit. “What do you need,” he said, suddenly all business. Save for a mild accent, his English was impeccable.

“What?” Junkrat said, giving him a blank look.

“Merchandise,” he said, somewhat impatiently. “Computers, sound systems, amplifiers, batteries… I trust you didn’t come here just to window shop?”

“Oh! Uh...” Junkrat looked at Roadhog for guidance. They hadn’t gotten quite that far in their planning. Their strategy was, as usual, to grab as many things as they could carry and sort it out later.

“Two computers and some hard drives. A mobile hotspot. Some kind of debugger.”

The man expertly picked out the devices. Junkrat examined each one to ensure that he wasn’t giving them duds. He wasn’t sure _what_ , precisely, he was looking at -- his expertise laid with mechanical engineering, not electronic -- but they seemed fine. They weren’t receiving display models, at least.

“Programming?” the man asked. “I don’t suppose you’re hackers?”

“What’s it to you?” Roadhog said.

He puffed himself up to his fullest height, shoulders back and spine ramrod straight. “It’s what I do. Best on the black market,” he said, not even trying to keep the smugness out of his voice.

This got Junkrat’s attention. He jumped on Roadhog’s back, hanging over his shoulder to whisper in his ear. Roadhog turned around to give them a modicum of privacy. “Roadhog, mate, we gotta get him. We’re dead in the water otherwise. He seems like a nice kinda guy, maybe if we ask real nicely, he’ll...” He paused for effect, a grin snaking across his face as he reached for the hook holstered on Roadhog’s hip. “... _hook_ up with us!”

“Stop that,” Roadhog said, not impressed in the slightest.

“Yer puns are just as bad as mine, you can’t pretend ya don’t like it, you great cunt!”

He poked the side of Roadhog’s mask before realizing that he was getting off topic. “I’m doin’ it again, ain’t I? Come on, whaddya say?”

“No,” Roadhog said firmly. “Do you want someone to find out about your little treasure?”

Junkrat considered it. They needed to do some heavy-duty programming if they wanted to make the god program usable, but handing a stranger the source code to muck around with was a horrible idea by anyone’s standards. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid since the night he left Junkertown behind. “No,” he admitted. “Good point.” He heaved a sigh and hopped off of Roadhog’s back.

They turned back around to face the Korean man, who had stood there and watched the entire exchange take place.

“Anyways,” Junkrat said breezily. “We should probably… leave.”

The man raised his eyebrows. “Got what you needed?”

“Yeah, this is plenty!” Junkrat said, taking one of the computers and leaving Roadhog to carry the rest. “Thanks heaps, mate, you know yer stuff.” The three of them exited through the hole that once was the front door, the sad aftermath of Roadhog breaking it open.

“Good,” the man said, satisfied that his work was appreciated. “Where are we going now?”

After his conversation with Roadhog, just seconds earlier, Junkrat couldn’t help but laugh. He didn’t know how much he had overheard during his little pow-wow with Roadhog, but the other man seemed to have gathered that they were conducting some kind of illegal project, and he wanted in on it.

Roadhog was less amused. “ _We’re_ not going anywhere,” he said. “This is a two-man gig.”

The man calmly removed a chip from his vest (which struck Junkrat as unusual -- who wore a button-down shirt and a tie on a heist, even if they were all black? He guessed he couldn’t really pass judgment on unusual choices of clothing) and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “I’d reconsider that, if I were you. There is some very choice footage of your break-in on here.”

“You’d incriminate yourself, turning that in,” Roadhog said.

“You underestimate my abilities.”

Junkrat lunged for the chip, but the man quickly shoved it into the pocket of his gun holster, which Junkrat eyed warily.

“He’s good, ‘Hog,” he said. He leaned in to mutter, “You can hook him if he tries to get away with that thing, roight?”

Roadhog grunted in agreement, then addressed the squirrely little criminal in front of them. “That’s blackmail.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’ve never blackmailed someone before?”

Roadhog heaved a sigh. There was no use arguing the point; they were all just as bad as each other.

“Fair point,” Junkrat agreed. “Alright, I’m sold, you can come on board. Roadhog?”

“Whatever you say.”

They set off down the street, loaded down with their merchandise. “You’re a programmer for hire?” Roadhog asked. “You’re not getting paid for this.”

“Yeah, we’ve got an arrangement over here, fifty-fifty. It’s got no room for you in it,” Junkrat added.

“This is fine,” the slender man said. “Knowledge is its own reward. I just want to satisfy my curiosity.”

“You don’t even know what we’re doing,” Roadhog said. “Why?”

He shrugged. “My life could use more surprises.”

“I like this guy,” Junkrat said with a grin. He loved a good surprise. “What is yer name, anyway?” he asked.

“Jae-won,” the man replied, extending a hand for him to shake.

Junkrat looked at it as if he had never seen such a thing before. “What a weirdo,” he said. “You’ll fit in perfectly!”

\---

They explained their objective in the vaguest of terms (“We’re gonna hack yer giant omnic!”). They failed to address the fact that they wanted to infect all omnics within a certain radius, civilian or otherwise. After all, for all they knew, Jae-won could have been an omnic sympathiser.

He did seem on board with their plan to infiltrate Yongary, but Junkrat had the impression it was more out of professional curiosity than anything else; he wanted to hack Korea’s “Monster from the Deep,” just so that he could say that he did.

He wasn’t terribly impressed with their accommodations, however. He hissed and jumped back when the three rats made their presence known upon turning on the light.

Junkrat gave him a look that said that he was personally offended. He was suddenly weirdly protective of the pests. “Skewer’s not goin’ to hurt you,” he said.

“Why,” Jae-won said, voice tense, “do you live with rats? In this... abandoned neighborhood? With trash everywhere?”

Junkrat actually was personally offended now. “Oh, oh, yeah well, we can’t all live in yer fancy _apartment towers_ with no _rubbish_ \-- look at this guy, Roadhog, he thinks he’s so good because his place doesn’t have rats!”

“We’re just passing through,” Roadhog said, considerably less outraged than Junkrat was over the slight towards their living arrangements.

“Well, I guess that makes sense,” Jae-won said, delicately sidestepping an empty water bottle. “You’re the traveling type; don’t stay in one place too long.”

“Why would we do that, anyway? Yer like sitting-- sitting--” waterfowl, he knew the term was some kind of waterfowl that he had never even seen, living in the baked wasteland of central Australia “--birds,” he finished. He had learned the phrase from Roadhog, but for the life of him, he could never remember how it went.

Jae-won smirked. “Not if you’re smart about it. I’ve been living in the same apartment since grad school, and you don’t see me getting caught.”

Junkrat scowled at him, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You callin’ me dumb? I am a fuckin’ _genius_ , mate -- all those traps we had to disarm before comin’ in? Mine. I made those, me.” His hand twitched around the detonator in his pocket. He was pretty sure there was still a live mine or two in the pile near the smarmy little bastard.

“He does have a brilliant mind,” Roadhog agreed, his hand on Junkrat’s shoulder. It was part reassurance, but that death grip made it part warning as well. Junkrat tried to dial back his emotions. If they were going to make use of a programmer, and it was beginning to look like they definitely needed to, it wouldn’t do to alienate him right off the bat. He released the detonator. “When it’s not leaky,” Roadhog added.

Junkrat didn’t argue the point, he was fully aware of his brain’s failings. “It works where it counts!” He picked up one of his metal traps. “Mind like a steel trap!” He opened its jaws as wide as they could go and threw his own head back in laughter. Roadhog couldn’t help but chuckle with him.

If Jae-won was regretting his decision to join up with the two of them, he didn’t let on. He brushed off an overturned bucket and sat down on it, primly crossing his legs. “Disregarding all of...” He waved his hand in Junkrat’s general direction. “...that, are you going to enlighten me on what, exactly, we’re planning to do?”

Junkrat was beginning to see why Roadhog was so irritated by Jae-won’s continued use of _we_ , as if he had been in on their plan right from the start instead of weaseling his way in out of a suicidal sense of curiosity. “No,” Junkrat said. “All you need to know is that we’re gonna destroy the _shit_ out of that thing. Just gotta do some research first before we figure out all those pesky little details. That’s why we needed the computers, innit, ‘Hog?”

Roadhog grunted in agreement and opened one of the laptops. Jae-won did them the favour of setting up their wireless hotspot, and they had an information page on Yongary pulled up in mere minutes. Junkrat was consistently amazed at how much and how quickly they could get information online. He was self-taught when it came to mechanics and chemicals, learning through many a failed experiment and perusing the old, dirty manuals that he had used to hone his reading skills, which admittedly were still not as great as they could have been -- he could easily recognise all the words he was used to seeing in handbooks, but he still had to sound out most other words before they clicked. The learning process would have been a lot simpler if he’d had access to online videos. But then he would have been deprived of the glorious explosions that resulted from his many fuckups, so really, it was a win-win situation.

The video was, in a word, abrupt. The camera had been switched on after Yongary had already emerged and begun wreaking havoc, and it cut off mid assault with a burst of static.

Watching the video feed, Junkrat was struck with an odd sense of déjà vu. It reminded him of a clip he’d seen once, several years ago. One of the Junkers had gotten his hands on a tablet with the capability to access the internet -- a rarity in Junkertown, so far removed from society and its conveniences -- and he had crowded around with several others to watch the Australian Navy fight a massive omnic in front of the Sydney Opera House. He never saw how it ended, having been shoved out of the circle around the time that a fleet of fighter jets joined the assault, but the image stuck with him. The omnic that rose out of the ocean on the tv screen didn’t quite resemble the one in Sydney Harbour, although they had likely come from the same omnium. Yongary was a cobbled together monstrosity, bits and pieces grafted on from cannibalised omnics and the  wreckage it had caused in previous years.

The media hadn’t been lying when it said that Yongary adapted to attacks; a shield was welded to its left forearm so that it could fend off gunfire, while its right arm extended into a freakishly long limb that enabled it to bat fighter jets out of the sky. Junkrat would have been impressed if it hadn’t been a bloody omnic; that kind of adaptability was how one survived in the cutthroat society of the Junkers. He didn’t like thinking that he shared any qualities with an omnic.

They watched as Yongary crushed one of the Korean Navy’s ships. “Well that’s just plain rude,” Junkrat said.

Roadhog snorted in amusement. “Won’t be doing that much longer.” He paused the video, which froze on a shot of the colossal omnic staggering backwards. “You,” he said, pointing at Jae-won. “Can you write a virus to infect it?”

Jae-won rubbed his chin. “I could do a virus, yes, that part is easy -- when you’re me, of course.” Roadhog visibly rolled his eyes to the ceiling, his head tilted back in exaggeration. He was saddled with not one, but two, egotistical maniacs. “But,” Jae-won continued. “If we’re infecting it at the core level, it’s going to have to be physically uploaded. This is no god program, you can’t just alter its program remotely, not without some kind of link between the two.”

Neither Junkrat nor Roadhog managed to contain a snort of laughter. “No, no, yer right, go on! Don’t mind us.”

“What a ridiculous idea,” Roadhog said.

Jae-won narrowed his eyes, but it appeared to be more out of concern for their mental well-being than suspicion. The concept of creating and executing a god program _was_ ridiculous, but it wasn’t _that_ funny. “The easiest thing would be to use a drive, hard connect it to Yongary, then wirelessly transmit the virus and let it do its work. We can do that as long as we can get to it, but that poses another problem. See, the hardest part is--”

“--getting inside it,” Roadhog finished. “Worked that out myself, thanks.” Junkrat patted his arm sympathetically. Roadhog hadn’t wanted to bring in an outside programmer in the first place, and it was easy to resent the man for taking over _their_ plan, instead of just doing what they said. “We’ll figure it out. Nothing ever stopped us before.”

It was true, they’d broken into places more secure than a giant omnic.

Junkrat rubbed his chin. “Has anyone ever tried blowing it up?”

“They did,” Jae-won said. “They dropped bombs on it last time, before it knocked their drones out of the sky. I believe that’s what ended it in another draw. The bombs made it retreat, but they didn’t defeat it.”

“But we don’t need to defeat it! Just gotta get a big enough hole in it to get one of us in there, roight? We can do that, easy!”

Jae-won gave him a skeptical look. “Do you really think it’s not going to have prepared for that this time? Look at it, it’s adapted to counter every tactic MEKA’s tried so far. Of course it’s going to be prepared for bomb threats this time.”

“They’ve never had me! I’m a demolitions expert, if I do say so myself,” Junkrat bragged. Was it bragging if he was just relaying facts?

“Not every problem can be solved with an explosion,” Jae-won said.

“If it can’t be solved with an explosion, then yer not doin’ it right!”

“That’d probably make it angry. We don’t want to make it angry, if we need to get close.”

Junkrat sighed. “Fair enough, then.” He plopped down on the floor. This mission suddenly was a whole lot less fun. “What do _you_ suggest then, if my idea ain’t good enough?”

Jae-won didn’t have any immediate suggestions, which shouldn’t have given Junkrat as much satisfaction as it did. Roadhog unsheathed his hook, causing Jae-won to leap back in alarm and Junkrat to snicker. Their new partner could hold his own intellectually, but he was an outright coward when it came to physical violence. It was a wonder his shaking hand hadn’t dropped his gun during their brief standoff.

Roadhog either didn’t notice or didn’t care; he was thoughtfully running his hand over the length of chain that connected his hook to the spool on his hip. “Harpoon,” he said suddenly.

Junkrat glanced at the hook that was the inspiration and grinned. “Say, that’s not a half bad idea! Then do it like we did in Sydney?” For as upset as he had been about the CEO’s betrayal, he _had_ enjoyed shimmying down chains and ziplining across wires. He would be thrilled to impale a giant omnic with a harpoon and scale the attached chain.

“It’d be easier to get in if we’re on it too, wouldn’t it? Just gotta cut into it, that’s nothin’ a blowtorch can’t fix...” His brain was already whirring, kicking into high speed. He rustled around in their belongings for a piece of paper and a pencil stub. He muttered to himself as he scrawled out his ideas on the back of a map.

Jae-won was already skeptical. “And you honestly think it’s not going to immediately knock you off and send you plummeting into the water?”

“Proper location and an EMP.” Junkrat gnawed on his pencil as he used a well-worn stub of an eraser to rub out a miscalculated number. “Now shut up.” He spat out the pencil and resumed sketching, his tongue poking out of his mouth in intense concentration.

Jae-won opened his mouth to say something else and promptly shut it when Roadhog shoved him. “Leave him alone while he’s working.”

Junkrat didn’t know how long he had been immersed in his fog when he came out of it, but judging by Jae-won’s look of utter boredom, it had been a while. He slapped the paper down on the ground in front of his two partners-in-crime with a triumphant “hah!” He didn’t know how decipherable the technical drawings were to the layman, but he was proud of the diagrams he had banged out, detailing the design and construction of a homemade blowtorch and electromagnetic pulse bomb. In the bottom left corner was a helpful doodle of a crudely drawn omnic, a pulse bomb exploding on its side with a “kaboom!”

Jae-won picked it up and studied it. “Your handwriting is atrocious.”

“Kinda missin’ the point here, mate.”

Roadhog studied his work. “Good job,” he said, and Junkrat glowed with pride as Roadhog put his hand on his head, ruffling his hair.

Jae-won heaved an over-the-top sigh. “If you think these little devices are going to help us get inside it and hard-wire it, then I’ll trust you,” he said, with the air of someone who thought he was being extremely magnanimous.

Junkrat’s fingers twitched with the desire to strangle him. “I don’t _think_ , I _know_.”

“All right,” Jae-won said mildly.

Junkrat barely contained a strangled _grrgh!_ of frustration.

Their first day together was a blur: everyone was too tired from their respective late night heists to get much actual work done. Junkrat kept nodding off into microsleeps until Roadhog forced him to take a nap.

He woke up to find Roadhog and Jae-won in the middle of a terse conversation.

“What do you even get out of this?” Roadhog was asking as Junkrat sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was still groggy, but Jae-won’s quirked eyebrow didn’t escape his notice.

“Personal satisfaction, recognition, glory... do you want me to go on?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You fail to understand the fame I’d get in my business circles if I was the one to hack Yongary. Regardless, I’d like to see if I can do it. I enjoy a good challenge.”

Junkrat listened in as he reattached his prosthetics, having taken them off to let his limbs breathe while he slept. He still never felt complete without them on, his phantom limbs aching with nothing to act as a stand-in.

“You better be able to,” Roadhog grunted.

“Oh, don’t doubt me. I’ve always succeeded brilliantly at my challenges. Now...” Jae-won steepled his hands. “I need more information about our objective here. Infect the omnic, overwrite its source code, and program it to...” He spread his hands wide. “...do what?”

Roadhog looked over at Junkrat. “Oh good, you’re up.” Normally Roadhog would have made some quip, _hoped I’d get that peace and quiet for a little longer_ , but Jae-won was edging into dangerous territory. Junkrat was more than happy to provide backup, even though it usually proved to be hit or miss.

“Sure am!” he said, bouncing to his feet. “We talkin’ about our lil project?”

“Yes, I was just asking about what it is you intend to do when we hack into this thing.”

Junkrat rested his elbows on Roadhog’s shoulder and leaned heavily against his back. “Two things, really. We’ve got a program of our own, so one: execute it, no questions asked, no peekin’ at it. Two: make the bot off itself. Just...” he drew his thumb across his throat with a threatening noise. Roadhog tensed up beneath him, unsure of where Junkrat was going with this. His latter request wasn’t strictly the truth; they wanted Yongary to influence other omnics to kill themselves, but telling Jae-won this would expose their god program. The best they could hope for was to have Jae-won write the code to do so, shove it into their god program’s source code themselves, and pray that it worked. Junkrat patted Roadhog reassuringly, a silent _trust me_.

Jae-won’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You want me to run your program without knowing what it contains?”

“That’s the idea, yeah. Can you do that? Keep it so ya don’t have to go poking yer nose in it to make it work?”

“I mean, yes, it could function as a separate packet, but aren’t you... going to tell me what it is?”

“Nope!”

Jae-won folded his arms over his chest. “Just tell me, it’d make all of our lives easier.”

“Yeah, nah. Y’know, for a black market programmer guy, y’sure are nosy,” Junkrat commented. “You never have a client tell ya to do something, no questions asked?”

“That’s different,” Jae-won said. “They’re paying me.”

“We’re paying ya too! In satisfaction, remember?” Junkrat snickered.

Jae-won sighed, exasperated, but he caved. “All right, fine.”

Roadhog pulled Junkrat outside under the pretence of taking a leak. “We need him out of the picture,” he said bluntly. “Just for a bit.” He glanced at the door, apparently convinced that Jae-won was listening in.

Junkrat scratched the back of his head. “I mean, he’s gotta go home sometime, don’t he?”

It was cold enough that Junkrat could see the puff of air from the filters of Roadhog’s gas mask as he exhaled. “I already told him he could sleep here. Until the project’s done. Because I don’t trust him and he doesn’t trust us.”

“Yeah, that’s reasonable.” They were not a trustworthy duo. “But lookit him! A fashionable bloke like that’s not gonna stay in those clothes the whole time. He goes home, we take care of whatever we wanna do.” He could think of a few things he’d like to take care of, but he suspected Roadhog had more practical ideas in mind. “We got this!”

“Do we?”

“Hey, hey,” Junkrat nudged Roadhog in the side with his elbow. “Ya doubtin’ me, big guy?”

“No. Just wary. Something you could use a little more of.”

Junkrat blew a raspberry. “Pfft, _wariness._ ” He made it sound like the most asinine concept known to man.

He hopped off the rubbish bin, but Roadhog stopped him before he could open the door to their hovel. “I’m not done. What are you thinking, asking him to kill off that omnic?”

“No, no, it’s okay, I got it all figured out! All we really need from him is the commands that’ll make an omnic want to kill itself. We just take those and stick ‘em where they need to go instead, and she’ll be right!”

With no facial expression to gauge from, he couldn’t tell whether Roadhog doubted him or not, but his tone was neutral when he said, “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”

Junkrat grinned. “Bloody oath, I am!”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Junkrat continues to be absolutely horrible at understanding social mores.

Sunset came quickly in December, the view outside their house blackened by 5:30 PM. Jae-won, still in his all-black formal ensemble, took one look outside before declaring that he categorically refused to walk all the way home in the dark and cold to fetch a change of clothes and a sleeping bag.

They dragged in an ancient, festering mattress from the piles of junk and abandoned belongings outside. Junkrat and Roadhog spared a single blanket for their guest to use, then begrudgingly gave up a second one when he insisted on using the first one as a barrier between his body and the dirty mattress.

It wasn’t until they were all snug in their makeshift beds and drifting off to sleep that Junkrat remembered Roadhog’s promise from earlier that morning.

“Son of a bitch,” he said out loud. All of his lust surged back to him, now that he was no longer distracted and free to let his mind wander.

“Go back to sleep, Junkrat,” Roadhog said, groping around in the darkness to cover Junkrat’s face with his hand.

Junkrat bit his finger, giggling as Roadhog pulled his hand back. “Mate, I can’t even _think_ about sleeping now -- this morning, you said later, and it’s later!” He flung his arms around Roadhog’s neck and licked the side of his gas mask.

Roadhog pushed him away. “Jae-won is right there,” he said, not even trying to hide the incredulity in his voice. He wiped off Junkrat’s saliva.

“So?” Junkrat said. “I can be quiet if you can.” His voice at present easily carried across the room.

“You still can’t-- you can’t _do_ that.”

“Oh.” Junkrat was beginning to suspect that this was another one of those proper society things that he had never learned. What was the problem, as long as they weren’t disturbing anyone else? It was too dark for Jae-won to see them, and he fully intended to be too busy with his mouth to be making much noise himself. “What if I asked him first?”

“I can hear you,” Jae-won said from across the room. “And I’d prefer if we all just went to sleep.”

Roadhog turned his head to look at Junkrat, and even without any visible facial expressions, the implication was clear: _See?_

Junkrat heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled over on his back once more. If Jae-won was going to be working with them until they executed their plan, it was going to be a very long two weeks.

\---

“You’re eating that wrong,” Jae-won said.

Junkrat swallowed and set the bowl of rice that he had been shoveling into his mouth down on the table. “Well, it’s goin’ inside me, so how wrong can it be?”

The rumbling of Roadhog’s stomach when they all woke up that morning was sign enough that they needed to eat. Work could wait. Jae-won hadn’t approved of the options they offered (“What do you _mean_ you don’t have real food here?” “This is real food.” “This is junk!” “What, like we’re gonna stockpile fresh food that we can’t eat all at once? With what fridge?”), so they ended up walking further into the city to a restaurant that Jae-won picked out.

“I’m talking about your etiquette,” Jae-won said. He hadn’t been prepared for how much the two of them could eat, nor how poorly. Junkrat didn’t know the dining etiquette of his home country, never mind that of Korea. Roadhog bore the signs of someone who had once been civilised -- he could wield the chopsticks perfectly -- but no longer gave enough of a shit to be refined when eating. “It’s nonexistent.”

Junkrat gestured at himself with one hand. “Ya really expect anythin’ else?” He picked up his abandoned pair of chopsticks, trying once more to master them. When he failed again, he stuck them straight up in his bowl of rice and downed another shot of soju.

Jae-won’s eye twitched behind his glasses, and he reached over the table to yank the chopsticks out of the bowl and place them on the porcelain rest. “No, I suppose it was foolish of me to expect anything else.”

Jae-won graciously paid for their meals -- a magnanimous gesture, given how much food Junkrat and Roadhog had consumed -- and they emerged from the restaurant into the bright, cold air of winter. Jae-won looked down at his outfit, which was noticeably rumpled from sleeping in his clothes. “I suppose I should stop home and gather some clothes and belongings while I’m out,” he mused, smoothing out one of the creases in his shirt. “But I _would_ like to take a crack at that code before tonight.”

Junkrat shrugged. “Fine by me! But I’ve got business down here -- gotta get me some proper supplies for that little bomb of ours.” He could strip his concussion mines for some of the components, but engineering a powerful electromagnetic pulse would take more than what he had on hand.

“Excellent,” Jae-won said. “I’m sure I can find my way back to your little… _home_ by myself.” He was reluctant to call the abandoned building they were squatting in an actual home.

“I’m coming with you,” Roadhog said. He looked down at a stunned Junkrat. “Someone needs to keep an eye on our guest.”

Junkrat had gotten so used to Roadhog’s constant presence that it felt bizarre to not have his bodyguard by his side. He knew that Roadhog was right -- someone needed to guard his treasure, after all -- but he didn’t have as many misgivings about Jae-won as Roadhog did. The man was snarky and stuck-up, but he was also easily physically intimidated and committed enough to their project that Junkrat didn’t see any cause for concern.

“Sure!” Junkrat said, his voice a little too loud to be genuinely enthusiastic. “I can take care of meself just fine! Did it for long before you came around.” He didn’t know whether he was trying to convince himself or Roadhog. “Well, not really ‘came around’, more like ‘tried to kill me,” but ya know, after that, when we became friends! Bodyguard first, or, still a bodyguard, but I don’t need a bodyguard, I’m perfectly--”

“Hey.” Roadhog interrupted his nervous rambling by placing a hand on his shoulder. “Just stay out of trouble. You’ll be fine.”

Junkrat wet his lips. “Roight. Might need to get into a _little_ bit of trouble to get what I need, but I’ll try to be on me best behavior. Go on ahead, I’ll be back once I got some proper materials to work with.”

“Good.” Roadhog pressed a masked kiss to the top of Junkrat’s head, and Junkrat watched as he and Jae-won disappeared.

Junkrat was used to being alone. He had spent a large portion of his life on his own, constantly trying to fit in with the other Junkers by worming his way into social groups, but he never fully belonged. Roadhog was the first person who had accepted him for who he was, eccentricities and flaws and all. He was agreeable to Junkrat’s more batshit ideas, he pulled him out of trouble more times than he could count, and he stuck by him every step of the way. Not having Roadhog by his side just felt horribly, horribly _wrong_.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Junkrat said out loud. The sooner he gathered what he needed, the better. He wasn’t terribly worried about most of the supplies. The blowtorch was easy enough: he was no stranger to siphoning propane to fill a long-stemmed lighter, and a propane adapter wasn’t impossible to find. If he couldn’t find an airsoft supply store, he was confident he could liberate some poor soul’s grill of its adapter. As for the EMP, copper wire wasn’t hard to locate if you knew where to look, and with a bit of forging, he could repurpose his concussion mine shells into a casing for the bomb. The trickiest bit was finding a suitable capacitor that could hold a strong enough electric charge.

“Capacitor, capacitor, capacitor,” he muttered to himself as he ran through the streets of downtown Busan.

He slowed when he noticed the line of cars parked along the sidewalk, an idea formulating inside his head. He was no stranger to looting vehicles -- his RIP-tire was powered by a motorcycle engine -- and a car’s audio system could be just what he needed.

He hunted for a parking lot that wasn’t overly busy and picked the car furthest away from the hub of activity. “Let’s see, what do we have here?” He cracked the knuckles of his left hand and popped the hood of the car, hunting for the fuse box in the engine bay. When he found it, it was a simple matter of identifying the alarm fuse and using the pair of heavy-duty pliers he kept in the bag around his waist to remove it. “Easy as!” he declared, closing the hood. With no anti-theft alarm to worry about, he used his metal fist as a weapon and smashed the pane of glass on the driver’s side. He reached through the broken window to unlock the door and slid inside, thoroughly pleased with himself. Removing the car’s audio system was the easy part; he could do it in his sleep, he’d scavenged supplies from so many vehicles that had been left abandoned in the aftermath of the nuclear explosion. A popped dashboard and several removed screws later, he had a state of the art radio tucked under his arm.

It took some time and a good trek around the city to collect the rest of the supplies he needed, but they were acquired more or less legally (the bottle of propane was dubious). The process was enough to make him forget about his separation anxiety, asides from a moment or two where he turned to make a snarky comment to Roadhog. It was disconcerting to find that there was nobody behind him to watch his back. He was glad to trek back to their base of operations, all the supplies to build electromagnetic pulse bombs and fire-breathing blowtorches in hand -- as well as a can of black spray paint. _Take_ that _, brain,_ he thought triumphantly, immensely pleased that he hadn’t needed Roadhog’s reminder to remember his wish to contribute to Busan’s local artistic community.

Too weighed down to turn the knob himself without dropping anything, he kicked the door of their house until Roadhog answered it. “Guess who’s back,” Junkrat sang out, dumping everything in the corner of the room that he had carved out for himself.

“How’d it go?”

“Ah, it was a piece of piss, nothin’ I couldn’t handle. Whattabout you, all good up here?”

“Yeah, good,” Roadhog grunted. “Didn’t like not being around you though.”

A thrilled Junkrat threw his arms around Roadhog. “Me neither, ya big lug!” Roadhog groaned in protest, but it was just for show, as he put his hand on Junkrat’s back to hold him close.

“You were gone for what, three hours?” Jae-won eyed them both with a critical stare. “Surely you’re not _that_ dependent on each other?” They simultaneously turned their heads to glare at him, and he held his hands up in surrender.

“Piss off!” Junkrat said as he hugged Roadhog tighter out of sheer defiance.

“Okay, okay, forget I said anything!”

“That I will!” Junkrat said imperiously. He released Roadhog and sat down on the ground next to him, scooting so he could rest his back against Roadhog’s side as he began stripping the capacitors out of the sound system.

\---

They worked well into the evening, with the occasional break to take care of bodily needs and shoot the breeze.

Finally, Jae-won closed the lid to the laptop and stood up, tucking it beneath his arm. “Time to call it a night. If you’ll just upload your program packet so I can link to it, I can ensure that it gets activated when the virus kicks in. And then I’ll be back with the laptop at...” He checked the display of his watch, which projected a hologram of the time. “12 P.M. tomorrow.”

“It stays here,” Roadhog bluntly replied, nodding at the computer.

Jae-won arched one thin eyebrow. “It belongs to me,” he said. “And I’m just keeping it safe in my apartment overnight.”

Junkrat blinked up at Roadhog. “Yeah, what gives?  No harm in lettin’ him bring his gear home. Security’s probably better than this dump,” he reasoned. “Not that I can’t rig it up to make any surprise visitors go _kaboom_ , but… y’know. More noise and all that.”

Roadhog folded his arms over his broad chest. “Nothing leaves this place until it’s ready.”

Junkrat shrugged and turned back to Jae-won. “You heard the big guy, then. Leave the goods here. We’ll take real good care of it, cross me heart.”

“The fact that you say it like that worries me,” Jae-won muttered, but he didn’t protest further. He set the computer down on their makeshift table. “If anything happens to this computer, I _will_ kill you,” he said with the utmost seriousness.

“Fair enough!” Junkrat cheerily replied. When the door shut behind Jae-won, he turned to Roadhog and scratched his head. “Not that I’m sayin’ yer _wrong_ , but why’d ya stop him? Pretty sure the thing’s rightfully his.”

“You’re too trusting. He wanted you to put the framework for your treasure on it first.”

It took a moment for Junkrat to grasp the implications. “What?” he said, brows knitting together. “What, _no_ , he’s obnoxious, sure, but he’s a good bloke! Plenty helpful, responsible, not a suit... he wouldn’t _steal_ it.”

“He’s also a criminal.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing!” Junkrat snickered. “Besides, he’s got no clue that it’s a god program, he just thinks it’s gonna hack that omnic’s fake brain, yeah?”

Roadhog studied him. Junkrat squirmed under his gaze. “You need to stop believing the best of people,” he finally said.

Junkrat shrugged. He knew he was infuriatingly upbeat, and his experiences with other Junkers should have made him less forgiving, but he couldn’t help his optimistic nature. “Yer jaded, mate.”

“I have to be. It’s a cold and broken world.”

Junkrat grinned. “Well, ya got the cold part roight!” He slipped his icy hands under Roadhog’s jumper, giggling hysterically as Roadhog tried to shove him away.

“Be serious,” Roadhog told him, but Junkrat was convinced he could hear a smile in his voice.

“You and me both know that’s askin’ a lot,” Junkrat said.  

Roadhog snorted. “Don’t need to tell me that. At least try. We need to figure out how to make it so he can’t see your program.”

“Sure, sure, lock it up, or whatever the computer mumbo jumbo for that is.” Junkrat disassembled his RIP-tire and retrieved the USB containing their source code. Seeing it laid out on the computer screen in front of them was both mystifying and inspiring. Junkrat pored over the code on one laptop while Roadhog searched for encryption methods on the second. Deciphering the language was difficult enough on its own, a challenge compounded by Junkrat’s aversion to reading long chunks of text. If they inserted Jae-won’s code in the right spot, they could use their host to infect omnics and imprint on them the command to kill themselves -- but he was beginning to think that he would need to see the code before he could determine where it belonged. “Just gonna... shove it in there,” he murmured to himself. “It’ll work, won’t it?”

“If you do it right, yeah.”

Junkrat drummed his fingers on the laptop. “I’ll figure it out. We got time, anyway.” He wasn’t _too_ concerned: Lady Luck tended to favour him, and if he had to stick the code in somewhere and pray that it worked, well, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing he had attempted and succeeded at.

“Yeah. Right now, we need to protect it.”

Junkrat hummed in agreement. “Running it won’t do no good if someone rats us out. Still don’t think our new mate’d do that, but...” He shrugged and put the laptop aside. “Whatcha find?”

Encrypting the god program into a secure program packet was a collaborative project. Junkrat laid with his head on Roadhog’s lap, listening and nodding as Roadhog read his findings out loud to him, and they puzzled it out together. Neither of them were computer geniuses by the end of the night, but after repeatedly testing out their efforts, they had at least managed to encrypt their program.

“Another job well done,” Junkrat said blearily, yawning loudly as he stretched out his entire body. His eyes were drooping as Roadhog shut the laptop, and he passed out in seconds, drooling on Roadhog.

He hadn’t bothered to take off his prosthetics, but he woke up the next morning to find himself under one of the mink blankets, his detached arm and leg on the ground next to him, and the USB safely in his reassembled RIP-tire.

\---

Jae-won made no mention of the precaution they took in protecting their god program. If he had tried to peek, he didn’t have the audacity to comment about the security measures in place. He was, however, extremely vocal on other matters.

“I cannot _believe_ you’re okay living among rats,” he said. Skewer had scurried past him, something small and shiny in its mouth, and Jae-won had reacted with a visceral jolt. “They’re such filthy creatures.” He drew his knees close to his body, presumably making himself as small a target as possible.

“Oi! They’re cleaner than you are,” Junkrat retorted.

Jae-won gave him a patronizing look. “Cleaner than _you_ , perhaps. They are not cleaner than me. When’s the last time you took a shower?”

Junkrat pondered the question. He was fairly certain the last time he had been in an actual shower stall was when he was incarcerated. “Does rain count as a shower?”

“Never mind.” Jae-won shuddered in disgust. “The rat is definitely cleaner than you.”

Junkrat snickered and pushed the sleeve of his jumper up so that he could trace a line in the soot and dirt that coated his forearm. He felt a certain kinship with the pack of rats, and even more so as he watched their collection of treasures grow, a jumble of shiny things and electrical wiring torn out of god knows what.

Until they turned on him.

He first realised that he was not immune to the rats’ lust for nest-building materials when he returned from one of their meal jaunts to find that they had gotten into one of his half-assembled concussion mines and ripped out several of the remaining wires. At least it was the mines, and not his EMP, he rationalised. Still, it wasn’t just the wires: several of the shiny coins and baubles he had collected vanished. He was extremely put out about it, given the size of his collection. He liked shiny things, and sometimes he just couldn’t help but stuff those shiny things in his pockets. It was an uncontrollable urge.

Suspecting the worst, he dug through his belongings and found that the bracelet he had found the night of their electronic store heist was missing, likely in the rats’ secret collection somewhere. He swore profusely and languished on top of Roadhog in melodramatic distress until Roadhog had enough and pushed him off.

The breaking point came during dinner, as he regaled Roadhog and Jae-won with the tale of how he had lost his leg (he felt like he had already told this story before, but if he had, Roadhog was apparently content to listen to him tell it again, and Jae-won was curious in spite of himself). He was shoveling crackers into his mouth when the largest rat had the audacity to steal one straight from his hand before scampering out of sight. That was the last straw -- they were taking _his_ shiny objects and _his_ food, and their hoarding was no longer amusing now that he was the victim.

It was like flipping a switch. “I changed me mind, I hate these fuckin’ rats,” he snarled. “There’s only room for one rat in this house, and that’s me!” He hoisted his grenade launcher, determined to find the thief. “They think they’re so much smarter than me. Well, I’ll show them, the furry little bastards...” He prowled around the corners of the room, screaming when one of the rats darted out from its hiding spot.

“Sometimes I think so too,” Roadhog said, watching as Junkrat chased after the rat.

Junkrat barely glanced up from digging through refuse. “What, didja say somethin’?”

“Nothing.”

“He said, sometimes he thinks they’re smarter than you too,” Jae-won helpfully supplied.

Roadhog smacked him upside the head, knocking his glasses off-kilter. “Shut up.”

“What?” Jae-won yelped. “Those were your words!”

“I’m allowed to say it. You aren’t.”

“Yeah, shut up!” Junkrat chimed in. He wasn’t offended by Roadhog’s insults; they easily rolled off his back, because he knew they weren’t sincere.

“I was just repeating what you said -- I wasn’t saying it myself, even if it is true,” Jae-won sputtered.

“Oi!” Junkrat protested. “Yer a filthy little liar! That ain’t true, and Roadhog knows it.”

Roadhog folded his arms over his chest and looked down at Jae-won. “I don’t need you to speak for me. I can repeat myself.”

Jae-won mumbled something in Korean under his breath, but he shut up, and Junkrat went back to digging through trash in search of the rats. Roadhog sat back down.

After some fruitless hunting, Junkrat straightened up. “I’m gonna eat them,” he decided. “Skewer must be skewered.”

“Yeah?” Roadhog sounded amused. They weren’t in Australia anymore, and it had been a long time since they’d eaten the tiny critters of the Outback. Their access to food had expanded greatly since leaving their home. “You have the tools to cook ‘em. Don’t even need to build a fire.”

“Yeah, I do!” Junkrat said, a little too enthusiastic at the prospect of using his grenade launcher for such purposes. “A little explosion, little bit of flame… _boom_! Properly smoked. S’all I need.”

Jae-won looked between the two of them, eyes wide with incredulity. “ _Why_? You-- you don’t need to do that, there is actual food here for you to eat. It’s probably carrying all kinds of diseases...”

Junkrat snorted. “ _Diseases_ ,” he said, as if it was the most implausible thing he had ever heard of. “Rat meat’s not half-bad. Not as good as a nice perentie, but not bad. Plus, this way I get to assert my dominance over them!” He propped his foot on his RIP-tire and puffed his chest out, hands on his hips. “I am the King Rat! They’ll all bow before me! Before I eat them, anyway.”

Jae-won looked like he was finally beginning to question his decision to worm their way into their anti-omnic project. The man could -- and had -- put up with a lot of Junkrat’s bizarre shit, but like everyone else Junkrat had ever associated with, he could only handle so much before he snapped.

Both Junkrat and Roadhog were disappointed when he didn’t get the chance to test their theory about his frag launcher’s cooking power. The rats must have instinctively sensed the danger they were in, because he wasn’t able to find them again.

Jae-won, at least, was relieved.

“Good riddance,” he said savagely.

“Finally, a sentiment we can agree on!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You should totally check out this absolutely ADORABLE art of Junkrat and Roadhog from the cold hands scene, because it's literally one of my favorite moments ever: http://coconutmilkyway.tumblr.com/post/166407908832/junkrat-get-your-icy-hands-out-of-there-they-are


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one, about twice the length of a normal chapter, but I felt like it all had to be told in one chunk. Also I feel like I should probably give you some kind of warning about second hand embarrassment for the beginning part of this because Junkrat is a Trainwreck

To say that Junkrat was horny was a gross understatement. Roadhog hadn’t cut off all physical contact with him after the mishap in Tokyo -- he was still perfectly happy to make out whenever Junkrat crawled on top of him and tugged insistently on his mask. But every time Junkrat’s hands wandered or he started grinding against him, Roadhog managed to find a way to wiggle out of the situation. Junkrat was getting tired of it. If Roadhog would just _stay put_ …

He let himself fantasise about tying Roadhog up so he couldn’t slip away. He didn’t realise that he was chuckling softly to himself, or that the drool that pooled in his mouth was beginning to leak, until Roadhog addressed him.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, it’s not _funny_ , exactly... just thinkin’ about what I wanna do with you.”

“We have company, Junkrat. And you’re supposed to be working right now.”

Right. Company. He’d been all gungho and enthusiastic about their partner to begin with, but the novelty had worn off, and Jae-won’s presence was really putting a damper on his sex life. Granted, it was non-existent to begin with, but he had been working on remedying that. Still, he couldn’t even jerk off for stress relief in the meantime.

So he was grateful for a project to work on. Anything to stop thinking about Roadhog’s cock in his mouth and his hand at his throat. Roadhog’s tongue, hot and wet against his skin. Roadhog’s body pressed against his own, trapping Junkrat’s cock against his belly.

He shook his head, trying to push the thoughts away and focus on the EMP bomb he was constructing.

It wasn’t working. He considered going outside to get off right quick, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He wanted _Roadhog_.

He wanted Roadhog, and he didn’t want to wait anymore. He glanced over at Jae-won, who was absorbed in his own work, his face lit up by the ghastly blue light of his computer screen. Maybe if he just _asked_... for all his faults, Jae-won was a reasonable man. It couldn’t hurt, he figured.

Junkrat worried his lower lip with his teeth. He put down the copper wire he had been holding and approached Jae-won. “Hey, mind if I ask ya somethin’?” He leaned against the wall, hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders hunched up around his ears. “Won’t take but a moment.”

Jae-won barely glanced up from the screen. “What is it?”

“Ya don’t mind if I have a little fun with the ol’ Hog over there, do ya?” He nodded in the direction of where Roadhog was sitting across the room.

Jae-won shrugged. “Sure, as long as you don’t count on me getting involved. I have no interest in that sort of thing. And I’m busy anyway, I don’t have time to mess around with you.”

Junkrat’s shoulders dropped, and he blinked at Jae-won. “Okay...” he began slowly. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t planning on it in the first place, so.” He wet his lips. “Yer busy, roight?” he confirmed.

Jae-won finally looked up at him, clearly annoyed. “I just said that, yes. Go do whatever stunt you have planned and get it over with so you can get back to work.”

Well, that went better than expected. _What a nice bloke,_ Junkrat thought. Maybe he had been too hasty in judging Jae-won.

He crossed the room to where Roadhog was working on their giant harpoon. “Put that down, I got somethin’ better for you to work on.” Junkrat plopped himself down on Roadhog’s lap and tugged the harpoon away, discarding it to the side.

“What--” Junkrat slapped a hand over the stitched line of Roadhog’s mouth. The action did nothing to physically keep him from talking, but the surprise of it made him shut his mouth regardless.

“Shut up,” Junkrat advised. He couldn’t help but giggle a little as he leaned in to kiss Roadhog’s collarbone -- he was too overjoyed that he finally had permission to act on his urges. He sucked on the side of Roadhog’s neck, his hips automatically rolling forward to get some of the friction he so desperately needed.

Roadhog pushed him away. “Inappropriate, Junkrat.” His head twitched over to look at Jae-won.

“No, no, it’s okay!” Junkrat insisted, pressing against the restraining hand on his chest. “I asked and everythin’!”

“Get off me.”

“Get off you, or get you off?” Junkrat snickered. Grinding the heel of his mechanical palm against his own crotch, he groped for the bulge in Roadhog’s pants.

“Get _off me_ ,” Roadhog repeated, a little louder this time.

Jae-won glanced up from his computer screen and jerked back. “What the _fuck_ are you doing?” he said, aghast.

Roadhog pushed Junkrat off his lap onto his ass. He sat there, knees spread and one hand still on his dick, and looked between the two of them in abject confusion. “You said I could!” he protested. Nothing made sense to him anymore.

“I said no such thi-- what, the ‘have fun’ thing?” Jae-won spluttered. “I thought you meant ‘have fun with’ like... like playing a trick on him! Actual fun, not _sexual_ fun! That never crossed my mind -- why would you even _think_ to ask permission for that?”

Junkrat’s brows furrowed. “Because I want it, and ain’t it polite to ask before doin’ it?”

“You don’t _do it_ , period!” Jae-won said. He pushed his glasses up onto his head and scrubbed his eyes. “You’re an animal. My dog can control himself more than you can, and he isn’t even fixed.”

Junkrat frowned. He wasn’t terribly civilised, but he didn’t think he was _that_ bad.

“Look, I don’t care what you do when I’m not around,” Jae-won said, “but it should stay that way. Keep your dick in your pants.”

“It _is_ in me pants -- And I mean, I can definitely keep clothes on if--”

“No,” Roadhog said, and Junkrat’s stomach plummeted. He never would have expected Roadhog to take Jae-won’s side over his.

“Okay,” he said, defeated. “I’ll just... be outside.” He snatched a can of spray paint from his pile of supplies before he made a break for it.

Once he escaped, Junkrat swore and kicked the metal trash bin by the door, causing it to fall over. He stared at it for a moment, then kicked it again, just to hear the satisfying _clang_. He plopped down on the ground and rubbed his hands over his face. At least the cold was killing his boner.

He was more infuriated than anything else. He didn’t _understand_ , he just knew that he was incapable of telling when it was and wasn’t appropriate to make a move. “Should just wait for him to try and fuck me next time,” he grumbled to himself, then let out a disbelieving laugh as he dropped his hands. “Yeah, that’ll never fuckin’ happen.” He let out a slow exhale. Maybe he was being unfair. It wasn’t like Roadhog never kissed him first. Maybe the timing just never was right. He shook the can of spray paint and channeled his emotions into it, painting an enormous mushroom cloud topped with stylised letters that spelled “KABOOM!” His only relationship might have been imploding, but if everything went to shit, then at least he would have left his mark somewhere in this world.

He heard the door swing open beside him. Roadhog sat down next to him, back against the house’s siding. Junkrat studiously avoided looking at him.

“Nice,” Roadhog said after a moment, lifting a hand to gesture at Junkrat’s graffiti.

“Yeah, I think it’s real representative of my state of bein’ right now. A true work of art.”

Silence.

Roadhog exhaled, the sound rasping through his gas mask’s filters. “Come here,” he said, wrapping a heavy arm around Junkrat’s shoulders. “Sorry.”

In that moment, Junkrat wasn’t sure whether he loved Roadhog or hated him. He hated that he made him feel things so strongly, things that he’d never felt before, things that consumed him entirely. And yet, he loved every inch of him. Roadhog made him happy in a way that he had never experienced before, and he was helplessly, irrefutably attracted to him. He just wished he could act on those feelings to completion.

Junkrat reflexively curled against Roadhog’s side. “I just wanted to blow off some steam,” he said, unable to keep the whine out of his voice. “I feel like I’m goin’ crazy, ‘Hog.”

“‘ _Going_ ’ crazy?” Junkrat elbowed Roadhog, who laughed, deep and wheezy. “I know. Just not when Jae-won’s there.”

Junkrat traced the outline of the pig face stitched to the front of Roadhog’s sweater. “So, after we ditch him, when all this is over?”

“After we ditch him,” Roadhog agreed. “So quit whinging and come inside, you’re gonna freeze out here.”

\---

The night before Yongary’s predicted appearance was one of the tensest and most exciting nights of Junkrat’s life.

Much to his and Roadhog’s relief, Jae-won had insisted on spending the night at his own apartment so that he could shower and “get ready for his close-up.” Junkrat and Roadhog couldn’t have cared less about the notoriety they would gain from their stunt, but the renown of successfully hacking the colossal omnic was Jae-won’s driving force.

“I’ll be taking the hard drive with me,” he said, tapping its casing.

“Bloody hell you will!” Junkrat retorted. They needed Jae-won out of the picture so that they could modify his work and prevent Yongary from killing itself before it infected and brought about the demise of the lesser omnics in the area.

Jae-won fixed him with a _look_. “Yes, I will. I need collateral to ensure that you won’t slip off in the night and try to pull this off by yourself.”

“It’s not going anywhere,” Roadhog said.

He and Jae-won stared at each other, at an impasse. Roadhog took a step forward, and Jae-won shrunk back, physically intimidated by Roadhog’s towering height and muscle. He was the first to break eye contact (at least, so it appeared; Roadhog’s eyes weren’t visible behind the thick lenses of his gas mask). “Fine,” he said, more than a little put out. “But I’m taking the harpoon with me. Then we’re both dependent on each other.”

“Fair enough!”

“Fine.”

“Then we’re in agreement.”

The door shut behind Jae-won.

“What a fuckin’ tosser,” Junkrat proclaimed.

Roadhog grunted in assent. “Let’s get to work.”

Junkrat plugged in the hard drive and cracked every knuckle on his left hand before attempting to open it. A message flashed at him: “Restricted Access. Please input password to continue.”

He gaped at the screen. “He _password protected it_? This is _our_ project, who the hell does he think he is?”

“He thinks we’re gonna mess with it,” Roadhog said. He sounded displeased, a sentiment Junkrat shared.

“I mean, he’s not _wrong_ , but what’d we ever do to make him think that? He knows we want to do this. Even if it needs a little tweak to suit our purposes...”

“Maybe he does it for everything.”

“Paranoid little freak. How the heck are we gonna get past this, then?”

Roadhog rubbed the back of his neck. “Start guessing, I guess.”

After three failed attempts (Jae-won’s name followed by his age; the name of his dog, which Roadhog had asked about during Junkrat’s meltdown outside; a frustrated keyboard smash of random letters and numbers), a message popped up on the screen. “Warning: You have entered an incorrect password three times. After five unsuccessful attempts, your device data will be erased.”

“Oh, son of a--” Junkrat looked helplessly at Roadhog. “What now?” He was normally the one with all the ideas, but he felt woefully outclassed here.

Roadhog exhaled, a long, drawn-out breath of air. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Look up ways to get in?”

Junkrat growled in frustration. “You do that, then.” He messed around with the hard drive while Roadhog began researching. He was not terribly confident that they could learn how to bypass a password in one night, unless Roadhog found a program that could do it for them.

He didn’t want to wait that long. Not when they still had to edit the code after they managed to unlock it.

“To hell with this,” he finally said, unscrewing the cap off of his right hand’s index finger. “I’m goin’ in -- get me some of those cables over there. And the lappy.”

Roadhog froze while Junkrat started unscrewing the device’s case. “You sure about that?” he asked, choosing his words carefully.

“‘Course I’m sure!” Junkrat said. “Don’t ya trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then what’re ya worried about?” He popped the lid off to examine its contents. “The storage unit’s in there somewhere.” He pulled the laptop onto his lap and pecked the device’s identification number into the open search bar. When he found the online manual, he studied it carefully. “I think I got this,” he said. “Nah, I _know_ I got this.”

Roadhog watched as he carefully extricated the hard drive’s storage and set it aside. Junkrat opened up the laptop to reveal its innards and used an empty SATA port to wire the storage component to the motherboard.

The hard drive contents, and their program, popped up on the screen. Junkrat grinned at Roadhog. “See? I told ya!”

“Never doubted you.”

“Liar! I know you were worryin’ over there. Y’d think ya would’ve learned by now. I’m a goddamned mastermind, mate!”

“Yeah, yeah. I should know better.” Roadhog nudged Junkrat with his shoulder.

If accessing the virus’s framework was the easy part, figuring out how to modify it was definitely the challenging part. They sifted through the code until, at long last, they found the segment that they believed encompassed the suicide command.

Pasting it into what they thought was the appropriate spot of the god program packet was an ugly, awkward process. There was no way to tell whether it would run properly, but to Junkrat’s untrained eye, it looked good enough.

“Y’know, if Kajura’s real,” Junkrat said, “and all that ‘a giant rainbow snake created Australia’ thing isn’t a load of crock... we should probably pray to it that this all works.” He cupped his hands around his mouth to shout at the ceiling.

“Oi, y’hear that, ya slithery bastard? Do us a solid, won’tcha? S’all in yer name, anyway!”

Roadhog laughed. “We need all the prayers we can get.”

Junkrat dropped his hands. “Or... _or_ , failing that, just dumb luck. It’s gotten us through this far, hasn’t it?”

“Sure has.” Really, their luck was extraordinary, all things considered. Luck was what enabled them to survive the harsh irradiation of the Outback and the callous, dog-eat-dog society that had sprung up in its wake; primal instincts and their innate talents for mechanics, explosives, and brunt force could only help so much. Plenty of equally strong men had died under the same conditions. They were the lucky ones.

And, if all went as planned, luck would make them gods.

\---

Junkrat’s sleep was dreamless but fitful, his subconscious restless for what the day before them held. They had crashed as soon as Junkrat reassembled the hard drive, exhausted from the whole ordeal and aware that they would be up at dawn. When the sun finally rose, they met up with Jae-won, who had acquired a boat for them to use. Junkrat and Roadhog didn’t ask how, nor did they particularly care. It was small, barely large enough to fit the three of them and their supplies, but it had a powerful motor that would get them to their target quickly. They reconvened on the private beach of an evacuated home near the harbour, relatively close to the site where Yongary routinely made its entrance. Junkrat spent the hours leading up to the attack in the sand, clinging obsessively to the device that held his god program.

“It’s almost time,” Jae-won finally said, glancing at his holo-watch. “We should get ready. Hand everything over, I’ll get us set up.” He climbed into the boat, reaching out expectantly for the harpoon, pulse bomb, and the hard drive.

Junkrat extracted his legs from the waist-deep pile of sand he had buried himself in. He and Roadhog ignored Jae-won’s outstretched hands and placed their belongings in themselves. It wasn’t likely that Jae-won would drop them, accidentally or otherwise, but they weren’t taking any chances.

Junkrat clambered on board behind Jae-won, who was tucking their devices away so that they were secure yet easily accessible. He snickered as he extended a hand to Roadhog, a parody of a prince offering his hand to help his princess down the steps.

Jae-won batted his hand away. “He can’t come with us,” he said.

“What?” Baffled, Junkrat looked up at Roadhog. “No, I need you!”

“There’s a weight limit. He’s too fat.”

Fury welled up in Junkrat like an inferno, burning hot and sudden. “Did you just call him _fat_ , you little sonovabitch--” He tried to attack Jae-won, but Roadhog was quicker and grabbed the back of his sweater.

“Let me go!” Junkrat snapped, fighting against Roadhog’s grip. “He insulted yer honour!”

“My honour doesn’t need defending,” Roadhog said. “Calm down.”

Junkrat was silent for a moment, then said, “Okay, I’m good. Y’can let go now.”

The second he was released, he immediately lunged for Jae-won again and would have tackled him over the side of the boat had it not been for Roadhog’s sharp reflexes. “Breathe.”

Junkrat forced himself to take several deep breaths. Roadhog waited until the agitated rise and fall of his chest stabilised before letting go. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Junkrat inhaled and shook himself out.

“He’ll be fine back here,” Jae-won told him.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be fine,” Junkrat parroted. All this reassurance was somehow making him feel less fine. He was wary about leaving Roadhog behind. At least he was going out there with a partner. Roadhog would be by himself on land, and while he knew Roadhog could protect himself just fine -- it was why Junkrat had hired him, after all -- he couldn’t shake the nasty feeling that something was going to happen with Roadhog on his lonesome.

There was a massive groan from behind them, and the earth shook beneath their feet. Junkrat grabbed Roadhog’s arm for stability, and they all watched as the colossal omnic’s crown emerged from the deep. For a moment, Junkrat forgot all about his hatred of omnics and just stood there, mouth gaping. Frozen in place, he watched as the omnic broke the surface. Water streamed down its massive, impermeable carapace as it looked around. It positively dwarfed the entire army that was awaiting it.

It was awe-inspiring.

“We have to go!” Jae-won shouted above the din; the Korean military had already opened fire, battering Yongary’s head as it rose from the water. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its metal skull. They only seemed to enrage Yongary, who emitted a deafening mechanical roar. In the distance, they could see the squadron of gamer-piloted mechs drafted by MEKA preparing for assault. If they were going to find an opening to make their move, it had to be _now_ , while the initial assaulters fell back and regrouped and the mechs were yet to be deployed. Yongary took another earth-shattering step, exposing its shoulders as it slowly extricated itself from the confines of the ocean.

Junkrat shook himself from his trance. It was just another omnic. Just a tool to be used. “Just a sec!” he yelled back. He stepped on the side of the boat for a boost, causing it to rock dangerously, and grabbed Roadhog’s face so he could plant a kiss on the stitched line of his mouth. He sat back down, buzzing with adrenaline, and hoisted his pulse bomb onto his shoulder. “Junkrat, primed and ready. Let’s do this thing!”

Roadhog grabbed Junkrat’s arm before Jae-won could start the engine. “Hey,” he said, and Junkrat looked up at him. “Be safe.”

A warm, fuzzy feeling made Junkrat’s stomach flip. “You too, ya great big lug.” He reached up to pat Roadhog’s cheek.

“Are you done yet?” Jae-won asked with a nervous glance behind them. Yongary was still working its way out of the water.

“Oi! Mind yer own bizzo, we’re havin’ a moment here!” Junkrat said. “But yeah, yeah, fine.” Roadhog released him, and Junkrat turned around to face the omnic head-on. “Let the games begin!”

They took off, approaching Yongary from behind. It quite literally had eyes in the back of its head, an early modification after it had been assaulted from both sides. The military was concentrating its efforts on Yongary’s front this time, fully aware that it was useless to split their forces up and try to gain the element of surprise through a rear attack. Junkrat and Jae-won were banking on being a small enough target that the omnic’s secondary set of eyes wouldn’t notice them. With any luck, if it did spot them, it wouldn’t view them as a threat compared to the army in front of him.

The closer they got to the colossal omnic, the slower they moved, until the boat was at a mere crawl. “What’s the big holdup?” Junkrat said, impatiently tapping on Jae-won’s shoulder. The boat inched forward.

“It’s... a lot bigger up close.”

Junkrat snorted. “Yeah, it’s called perspective. What’d ya think was gonna happen?”

“I just didn’t realise it was going to be _quite_ so big.”

“Y’watched those videos with us! Ya _saw_ it, next to those buildings, ya dummy!”

“Well, it turns out seeing it on the TV screen is very different than seeing it in person. I can’t even see its head without bending backwards.” Jae-won wiped his palms on his pants, perspiring heavily in spite of the cold weather.

A tingling sense of foreboding prickled the back of Junkrat’s mind, a fight-or-flight instinct that warned him of imminent danger. “Okay, we’ve established that it’s big.” Junkrat spoke slowly. He had the sense that any sudden movements would spook Jae-won. “But we’re armed, remember? All ya gotta do is anchor the harpoon, and I’ll take care of the rest -- quickly, mind you.”

Jae-won swallowed and shook his head. “No,” he said, an edge of fear creeping into his voice. It quickly spiraled into panic. “No, we’re going back. I’m not risking my life over this. This stupid project isn’t worth it. The fame isn’t worth it, not if I’m dead.”

Junkrat’s own adrenaline level spiked. “No, no, no, we’re not goin’ back! Just a few more metres, come on, we’re almost there--”

“I am _not_ getting even a _milli_ metre closer to that thing!” His hand went to the lever that controlled the boat’s engine. Junkrat batted it away.

“Don’t you fuckin’ wuss out on me now, ya spineless coward--”

“I’d rather be a coward than dead!” Jae-won stood up. Junkrat quickly followed suit. The boat rocked violently.

“Oh boo hoo, yer not gonna die! Melodramatic little--” The irony of calling someone else melodramatic when he went over the top with his emotions on a daily basis was lost on him.

“I don’t care!” Jae-won’s eyes darted every which way, his head whipping from side to side as he sought an escape route.

There was only one way out.

Junkrat lunged a split second too late. Jae-won dove into the ocean, and the force of his graceful swan dive sent the boat lurching to the left. “No!” Junkrat shouted. He thrust his arm over the side of the boat in a desperate attempt to grab Jae-won before he swam away. “No, no, _no_ , ya son of a bitch, get back he--” His words were cut short as the boat overturned. Junkrat’s feet flew out from underneath him, and he plunged into the ocean. In the tumultuous commotion, he had failed to realise that placing all his weight on one side was too much for the already tilting boat. The pulse bomb, the hard drive, the harpoon -- all of their equipment sank fast, lost to the depths of the ocean.

 _Ice_ , was his first thought. The freezing water hit him with a shock that paralysed his nervous system, numbing him to his core.

His stunned reaction was momentary, a brief, frigid second before his survival instincts kicked in. Junkrat thrashed in the water, but the metal of his arm and leg weighed him down, pulling him beneath the surface. He panicked and kicked his way back up, but his prosthetics weren’t buoyant, and they were going to drag him to his death. There was no way he could detach them _,_ not when he was struggling to stay afloat. He had never learned to swim, he’d never had anywhere where he _could_ learn to swim. Panic alarms sounded in his head. He was supposed to die in a glorious burst of smoke and flames, not like this, helpless and choking on salt water.

There was a buoy a couple of metres away. If he could just get onto it -- but between the weight of his thick sweater, his metal arm and leg, and his utter lack of swimming prowess, he was sinking fast. He tried to shout for help, not even caring about the consequences of getting caught, but all that came out was a bubbly gurgle as his mouth dipped below the waves.

This was it. Jae-won had sent him to a watery grave. His head sank beneath the ocean’s surface, and his vision spotted as he inhaled water in a desperate attempt to gulp down the nonexistent oxygen.

There was a deafening clang of metal on metal as something enormous struck the buoy he was struggling to reach.

At first he thought an omnic had gotten him, and he made the hasty decision that he would rather drown than owe his life to an omnic. Then it kicked in: it wasn’t an omnic, but a hefty military mech that scooped him up before it took off with another burst of energy.

He gasped and sucked down a precious lungful of air before looking at his savior. The pink mech was piloted by a young girl, barely an adult, who was speaking to an unseen audience.

“To those of you just tuning in, sorry we’re going AFK for a sec, this noob needs some serious help!”

Junkrat had the distinct impression that he had just been insulted. His pride was already wounded enough, he didn’t need the added knowledge that there were people witnessing his failure. He thrashed in the mech’s arms. “Put me down, put me down!” he shouted.

The girl behind the thrusters looked down at him. “Okay!” Junkrat’s stomach lurched as the mech dropped him a foot before catching him again. He clutched the mech, terrified. His life had flashed before his eyes in that brief split-second plummet. “Pick me up, pick me up!” he backpedaled. The pilot giggled.

She deposited him on solid ground, and Junkrat coughed violently, regurgitating seawater as he clung to the earth. All he could process was the smell of fish and seaweed and the salty taste of the ocean. He rolled over onto his back in time to see the girl in the mech bid him farewell.

“Gee tee gee!” she said with a cheeky wink. _What the fuck does that mean?_ Junkrat thought. He could still hear her narration before she activated her fusion boosters once more. “And we’re back in the fight! Get ready for some major pwnage, everybody!”

He sat there, shivering violently and hacking up seawater as he watched the mech rejoin the fray of MEKA operators. For a brief second, he admired the machinery behind it -- he’d seen similar contraptions in Junkertown, where mech battles were the primary form of entertainment. Nothing anywhere near as sleek or sophisticated as the girl’s pink mech, however. Junker mechs were cobbled together monstrosities, made out of scavenged parts and spikes that would have been immediately deemed illegal in civilised society. The battered flags of rival gangs and the peeling paint jobs couldn’t hold a candle to the beauty of a regulation Korean MEKA unit.

The moment of admiration was fleeting, and all at once, the fury that had been overtaken by fear came rushing back to him. This was supposed to be _his_ moment of glory, and it was over before it even began. He was _livid_ as he pushed himself up onto his feet, pegleg wobbling slightly. Where was Roadhog? He needed Roadhog to stabilise him, he was dangerously close to losing it as it was.

“Sir!” someone yelled. Junkrat ignored the shouting until the voice came from by his elbow. He realised that he was the one being addressed. He had never in his life been referred to as a ‘sir.’

“Sir, can you give us a few words about what just occurred? What were you doing out there? How does it feel to be rescued by MEKA’s latest prodigy, Hana Song?” An over-eager reporter shoved a microphone in his face.

Junkrat backed away. Another reporter joined in, and he stumbled back another step. The attention was severely freaking him out, a fight-or-flight reaction further amplified by his separation from Roadhog.

He fumbled for one of the grenade canisters he had attached to his hip in lieu of his usual harness, which didn’t fit properly over his now soaking wet sweater. He doubted the contents would function properly after being so thoroughly submerged, but it worked for his purposes. “Get back!” he said, voice shrill and panicky. He brandished a grenade like a cross to ward off vampires. “Get back, or I’ll blow us all to kingdom come!”

Someone grabbed the back of his waterlogged sweater, and he twisted frantically, only relaxing when he saw that it was Roadhog. Even then, he was still amped up and so tense that he was practically vibrating.

“No comment,” Roadhog told the reporter and his accompanying camera crew. He threw Junkrat over his shoulder and booked it: the further away they were from the cameras, the better. Their exploits were making it more and more likely that they would be recognised.

Roadhog carrying him was for the best; Junkrat wasn’t sure how much more his pegleg could take after the deluge of saline water that wrecked the suction of his leg’s socket. Still, he was antsy, itching to find Jae-won and make him pay. He squirmed in Roadhog’s grip, looking around for the traitor. “Where is he? I’m gonna _kill_ him -- we gotta find him, Roadhog! Where you goin’? Are we chasin’ after him?”

“No,” Roadhog replied. “He’s gone. Lost sight of him when I was trying to get to you.”

Junkrat swore and twisted around on Roadhog’s shoulder to better address him. “This close, Hog! We were _this close_ , and then that goddamn _wuss_ ruined everything! All my hard work-- all _our_ hard work is at the bottom of the ocean, I can’t _believe_ \-- He better hope I don’t ever see him again, because I’m gonna fuckin’ _kill him_ \--” In his hysteria, his voice was gradually rising in both volume and pitch.

Roadhog flinched away from him. “Stop screeching in my ear.”

“Sorry.” Junkrat dropped back down to bury his face in the back of Roadhog’s sweater. “Why arentcha as pissed off as I am?”

“I am,” Roadhog said, and the downright resentment in those two syllables sent a chill down Junkrat’s spine. With his ever present mask, it was hard to read Roadhog’s emotions when he was being practical and getting them out of danger. “I’d gut him before you got a chance to kill him.”

“Hmm. I’ll cut ya a deal then, mate. You can kill him, as long as I get to burn the body afterwards.”

“Deal.”

“Make it _real_ bloody.”

“I will.”

“Blood’s a good colour on ya, I ever tell ya that?”

Roadhog snorted, and Junkrat felt significantly less rancorous. As long as he didn’t think too hard about Jae-won, at any rate.

The anger returned when they reached the safety of their house and Roadhog deposited him on the ground. Roadhog sat on the floor, winded from the journey back, and Junkrat joined him. He looked around the room, and all he could see was the remnants of their work with Jae-won: the laptop and stolen merchandise Jae-won had given them, the dirty mattress that he had slept on, the empty takeaway bags from the times he had insisted on “real” food.

“Burn it,”  Junkrat said in disgust. “We should just burn this whole place to the ground and move on. Y’can’t pay me enough to make me stay here after all that. Like even if he didn’t make everythin’ go arse over tits, I almost _drowned_ , ‘Hog!” He balled his fists up.  ”That _rat bastard_ \-- no, no, rat’s too good a word for him. That -- that --” He paused his tirade to think. “What’s the opposite of a rat? An elephant?”

“Cat?” Roadhog suggested.

“That _cat bastard_ left me alone to fuckin’ drown!”

“I know. He deserves to die. Violently.”

“Damn straight, he does!”

Roadhog hesitated. “Sorry I couldn’t save you.” He sounded troubled. “You were too far away to hook.”

Junkrat waved his concern away. “What were ya supposed to do, swim all the way out there and tow me to safety?” He paused. “I mean, that woulda been nice, but come on. Kinda unrealistic. I woulda been dead by the time ya got to me anyway.”

“Probably.” Roadhog sighed.

Junkrat scooted closer so that he could wrap his arms around Roadhog. “Hey, s’all good, mate. I’m still alive, ain’t I? Y’ve saved my arse so many times, it was about time ya gave someone else a fair go of it.”

“Mmm.” Roadhog didn’t sound reassured, but he returned Junkrat’s hug nonetheless.

“...But the _code_!” Junkrat resumed his rant, unable to get off the topic of Jae-won’s betrayal. “All that hard work!”

They didn’t waste time in packing up their belongings. Junkrat was too keen to leave Busan and Jae-won and “that _bloody_ ocean” behind.

“Ready?” Roadhog asked. They stood next to the motorcycle, its boot and sidecar carrying their belongings.

“Hell, yes!” Junkrat’s thumb hovered over the button of his detonator. His blowtorch was somewhere in Davy Jones’ locker, so he would have to set the building ablaze using explosives. Not that he was complaining.

A tremulous voice called out from behind them. “You leaving?” They turned around to find the middle-aged woman they’d seen on their first night in town, their illegal neighbor who hadn’t turned them in despite their obvious criminal nature.

“Yeah, time to hit the road again,” Junkrat said.

She nodded. “Good luck,” she said, the thickly accented words managing to be both warm and wistful.

Junkrat and Roadhog looked at each other. She reminded Junkrat of a Junker he had known when he was very young. She had been frail and elderly, her face gaunt from lack of food. Everyone had placed bets on when she would die, but she turned out to be a survivor and lasted a good three or four years in the harsh and unforgiving Outback. Junkrat had always liked her; she had been surprisingly handy, and she had given him the mechanical handbooks that he used to learn how to read.

He nudged Roadhog. “Where’s the wallets?” he muttered. Roadhog handed them over with a small noise of surprise. “Hey, uh,” Junkrat began, addressing the woman. He didn’t know what to say, exactly. He’d never done anything like this before. Too socially inept to find the right words, he just threw them at her. “Here.”

The woman shrank into herself as the wallets thumped her shoulder, then hit the floor. She looked down at them, then at him, incomprehension written all over her face. “For me?” she asked.

He nodded. “Sure.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. She hugged them, pulling Junkrat tight against Roadhog’s side as she tried to wrap her stubby arms around the both of them.

Junkrat went stiff as a board at the sudden physical contact. He managed to blurt out part of a “ _get off_ ” before he choked back the rest of the words. “Geh--” And yet, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. He hadn’t been touched by anyone but Roadhog since they said goodbye to Ava and Rosa. Even then, it had taken a long time for him to get comfortable enough with them.

He was relieved when she released them and thanked them profusely. “Oh, thank you -- bless you both!”

“Wow,” was all Roadhog said as they walked back to their motorcycle.

“Don’t worry, I’m not makin’ a habit of that,” Junkrat assured him. “But she reminded me of someone, so sue me. And I for one don’t plan on comin’ back here ever, so what else were we gonna do with all that won? S’dead weight.” It occurred to him that he didn’t know how much won, exactly, he had just given away. “How much money was left in those wallets, anyway?”

“Not that much.”

Junkrat shrugged. “Eh, every bit helps, I guess?” He hadn’t saved her from her plight, but he hadn’t expected to, either. He was no hero; people could rescue themselves. It was the Junker way: every man for himself. Maybe she would be able to claw her way out of the slums herself, using their little startup fund. He’d never find out one way or another. “Whatever. Let’s beat it.”

They left in a cloud of exhaust, their house still standing behind them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Junkrat doesn't know how to do nice things even when he is seized by the sudden bizarre and inexplicable urge to do nice things for people. Just throw it at the old lady. Just do it. *struck by a smooth criminal playing in the background*


	10. Chapter 10

It was nice to hit the open road again. It reminded Junkrat of home: long days and nights at Roadhog’s side, either yelling over the roar of the motorcycle to talk to each other, or enjoying its loud hum in companionable silence. It was rejuvenating -- at least, it was after they made it through North Korea. Cutting through the country was easier than it would have been before the fall of the Kim dynasty, but it was still a challenging time. It was a bleak place to travel through, as they passed countless people trying to get back on their feet after the overturning of a dictatorship. Roadhog explained what he had learned about the country’s rocky past in the years before the formation of the Australian Liberation Front -- after the omnium explosion, he had abandoned civilisation and stopped caring about what went on in the world outside his own personal bubble. Junkrat nodded as he listened from the sidecar, but he didn’t comprehend most of it.

It was a breath of fresh air once they were in China, free from the Koreas. They didn’t stay long in the first city they came across, only stopping to rob a corner shop for provisions and enough money to get a fresh start. Wherever they decided to settle, it was going to be a good distance away, far enough so that no one would be searching for the two strange men who had stuck up a small store.

For as therapeutic as their road trip was, it took the better part of a month for Junkrat to get over his resentment. Thoughts of what they were going to do next brewed in the back of his mind as he pondered how to bounce back from Jae-won’s betrayal, but his anger made it hard to focus on plans for too long. He could shake it off for a few hours, but once he had sank his teeth into a particular mindset, it was hard for him to let it go. His emotions were nothing if intense, and this particular strain of bitterness was all consuming. Roadhog knew to leave him alone when he needed to stew.

He was in one of his moods when Roadhog unexpectedly veered off course into a random city. He didn’t bother questioning the sudden pit stop, too preoccupied with tearing a scrap of paper into smaller and smaller pieces.

Roadhog pulled over and left Junkrat to sulk in the sidecar. When it became impossible to rip the paper any further, Junkrat tossed the tiny pieces over his shoulder, where they fluttered to the ground like confetti. He looked up to see where Roadhog had disappeared to and found himself staring at the storefront of an electronics shop, TVs and all the latest gadgets on display in the window.

He scarcely had time to wonder what Roadhog was up to when the doors burst open and Roadhog tore out of the store, making a beeline for the chopper.

Junkrat sat up straight and fished for his frag launcher. “What, what? What’s happenin’?” Roadhog shoved a device at him, and he fumbled to hold it in the crook of his arm and still aim his weapon at the clerk who was chasing after Roadhog.

They sped out of the parking lot with an ear-splitting squeal of burning rubber. Junkrat sent a few grenades bouncing behind them as a deterrent before he took a good look at the thing Roadhog had foisted on him. It was a radio, far nicer than the one they had used in Australia.  ”What’s this for?” he asked, unable to comprehend why Roadhog had impulsively stolen it.

“Turn it on,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat flicked the switch. He recognised the intro to their favourite Australian radio station and looked up at Roadhog with an expression of utmost awe. “How--?”

“International radio,” Roadhog explained.

The familiar opening notes of Down Under by Men at Work started to play, and Junkrat felt an unprompted smile spread across his face as the gloom and doom on his shoulders lifted ever so slightly. He glanced over at Roadhog, affection squeezing his shriveled heart. With his (stolen) gift, Roadhog had given him a (stolen) slice of home, and it was more comforting than he had thought possible. As much as he loved traveling, Junkrat found himself missing Australia. He missed laying on the sunbaked, cracked ground of the irradiated Outback, squinting up at the kestrels hovering in the air in search of prey. He missed lazy, late night campfires with Roadhog at his side. He even missed their run-ins with other bloodthirsty Junkers who had a vendetta against him and a thirst for his treasure.

He cranked up the radio’s volume as high as it would go and sang along, loudly and off key, as they barreled down the highway to their next destination.

\---

It was early evening when they arrived in Beijing. The winter sun had already dipped below the horizon, but the city was aglow with neon lights, lanterns, and spectacular fireworks that had caught Junkrat’s attention from a distance.

“Party time! What’s all this for, even?” Junkrat said, craning his neck back and forth as he drank in the sights. They had parked the chopper and were walking through the streets, which were too congested to navigate on bike. The city was a pyromaniac’s paradise, firecrackers and burning bamboo sticks everywhere he looked. His fingers twitched, itching to participate in some socially-acceptable pyrotechnics. “S’it some kinda holiday? Not that ya really _need_ a holiday for some good ol’ fireworks.”

“Chinese New Year,” Roadhog said, eyeing a stall of dumplings.

“Chinese New Year!” Junkrat exclaimed. “They’ve got the roight idea, celebratin’ in style. _Every_ holiday could benefit from more explosions.” He spotted a firecracker stall and gave a little yelp of delight. “Roadhog, Roadhog mate, look, we gotta get some of those! Think they’ll let me take them all? I want them all.” He grabbed the sleeve of Roadhog’s jumper and tried to tug him along, only to remain firmly rooted to the spot. He didn’t have anywhere near the requisite amount of muscle to drag Roadhog behind him. “Come on, come on, _come on_ , ya can get yer dumpling thingos after! I need me somethin’ to keep me occupied when you’re stuffing yer face, don’t I?”

Roadhog considered the alternative: Junkrat incessantly bothering him and crawling all over him while he ate. “Deal,” he grunted. He let Junkrat lead him towards the stall.

In his eager state, Junkrat wasn’t paying particularly close attention to where he was going. Wending his way around a gaggle of tourists, Roadhog in tow, he accidentally ran headfirst into a pedestrian.

He stumbled back with an ‘ _oof_.’

The man was quick to apologise first, bowing slightly with an embarrassed, “Bù hǎo yì si.”

“Yeah, sorry, mate,” Junkrat automatically replied, letting go of Roadhog to step aside and let the other man pass. His eye was still on the fireworks stall.

The man smiled at them. “Gong xi fa cai!” he said before slipping around them. Junkrat was immediately suspicious. People usually only smiled at him when they were laughing at him -- which he appreciated when he was attempting to provide comedic relief, but it was insulting when he wasn’t _doing_ anything.

“Did that dipstick just insult me?” Junkrat said, pointing at the man’s retreating back.

Roadhog shrugged. “Look it up.”

In a fit of rage, Junkrat had abandoned their laptop in Busan, insisting that it was tainted by the memory of Jae-won. It hadn’t affected him thus far, but it did mean that they were shit out of luck when it came to “looking things up.” He snorted at Roadhog’s suggestion. “And where am I gonna do that?”

\---

“What the heck is this?” Junkrat gestured at the massive stone building in front of them.

“It’s called a library. It’s filled with books.” Roadhog led them up the steps.

Junkrat trotted after him and gave him a skeptical look. This was not his scene. “Why’d ya bring me to a place that’s filled with books? Y’know I don’t like them! Well, most of them,” he amended. “Mechanical manuals are nice. Teach ya the important stuff.”

“There’s computers here too.” Roadhog said as he pushed open the door.

Even Junkrat had to admit that the inside of the library was impressive, not to mention massive: it was several stories high. The first few floors were surrounded by a border of shelves upon shelves of books, while the upper floors were lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that must have flooded the library with natural light during the daytime. Even with the festivities outside, a surprising number of patrons sat at the evenly spaced out, identical tables that ran along the perimeter of each floor in an orderly arrangement.

“And you can take books out for free.”

Junkrat did a double take. “Wha-- _free_? Why there still books on the shelf, then? Y’d think people woulda cleared the place out by now.”

“You’re supposed to give them back eventually.”

“Huh. Weird.”

Junkrat made a beeline for the computer section -- like hell was he attempting to find one book out of these hundreds of thousands of books that would translate a phrase into English. He settled into a chair and painstakingly pecked his query into the search engine: “Gone shee fa ky.”

The computer automatically translated his misspelled phrase into Mandarin. “Wishing you a prosperous year too,” he muttered to himself. His eyes lit up and he whirled around in his chair to tell Roadhog its meaning, only to find no one behind him. “Roadhog?”

He found Roadhog several yards away, talking to a librarian who was doing a remarkable job at maintaining a professional demeanor with a seven foot tall, massive masked man looming over her. “What’s all this about, then?” Junkrat said.

“Come here,” Roadhog answered, and Junkrat trailed behind him as he led him to several rows of books.

Junkrat made a face. “Y’know I can’t read these,” he protested. “Couldn’t do it in Japan or Korea, why would I be able to now?”

“They’re in English.”

“Oh.” Junkrat looked up at the sign hanging from the ceiling, designating the area as the English section of the library. “...You know I can’t read these,” he repeated with a snicker. It was mostly a self-deprecating joke, but there was some truth to it. Unless they were the mechanical terms that he had memorised by sight a long time ago, reading things required too much effort to be worth it, most of the time.

He watched, fascinated, as Roadhog ran his finger along the numbers that labelled the spines of each book until he reached the 620s. He was about to ask how the hell Roadhog knew what each number meant before his brain supplied the answer, that that was what Roadhog had been talking to the librarian about -- and then he had to marvel at the very idea of this crazy system where numbers and decimals had literary meaning. He wondered if he’d like reading more if it was number-based.

“Here.” Roadhog interrupted his thoughts by shoving a book into his chest. Junkrat looked down at the mechanical handbook, and a grin spread across his face. Roadhog knew him too well.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Delighted at the prospect of having access to mechanical resources again, Junkrat began scanning the shelves himself. He couldn’t help but feel nostalgic, recalling how he had pored over a few similar ratty books some fifteen-odd years ago and gradually taught himself how to sound out the words for the machinery he tinkered with as a kid.

 _Mechanics of Materials for Dummies_ \-- well that one was just out. He might have been an idiot at a lot of things, but not when it came to constructing devices. _Advanced Robotics for Mechanical Engineers_ , on the other hand, piqued his interest. He plucked it off the shelf and handed it to Roadhog. Wandering further down the shelves, he found a few niche books on explosives, and it wasn’t long before Roadhog’s arms were comfortably full of a small hoard of books. Junkrat had gotten a little trigger-happy in selecting reading material.  He figured that whatever proved to be useless in terms of information could at least be repurposed as kindling.

“Well then,” he declared, giving his selections a onceover. “Let’s blow this joint, why don’t we?”

Roadhog hefted the books in his arms, and they made a break for it. The anti-theft alarms started wailing the minute they stepped through the scanners, and they plunged into the crowds of revelers to shake security off their tails.

“I found out what those words meant, by the way,” Junkrat said once they were back to wandering the streets, having escaped into the night and stashed their haul in the motorcycle’s sidecar. “ _Gong xi fa cai_. Wishing you a prosperous year too. So really, that bloke was givin’ us permission to supplement our income as we do.” He waved one of the bundles of money they had acquired from their initial trip to the corner shop. “Prosperous New Year. I mean, that’s just _askin’_ for it. I’ll make it prosperous, all roight.”

Junkrat practised saying his new phrase to everyone they met as they acquired fireworks and food. By the time they had parked their asses on a rooftop, he could perfectly parrot it. Trial and error was his tried-and-true method to learning new things, and there was something fun about speaking a different language. Maybe if he ever decided to stay in a country for longer than a month or so, he’d try to learn its language instead of muddling his way through with English and hand gestures.

“You’re good,” Roadhog told him. His mask was half-pushed up, giving him enough space to eat the steamed buns he had been eyeing earlier.

“Mate, I’m a fuckin’ _genius_ , ‘course I’m good.” Junkrat shoved one of the dumplings in his mouth. He wasn’t even attempting to manipulate the chopsticks that Roadhog so daintily wielded, instead choosing to pick them up with his metal hand. The plus side of this was that it couldn’t burn his hand; the negative was that he had no way of gauging just how hot the food was until it was already in his mouth. He yelped, trying to toss the morsel around in his mouth before swallowing it. He gave up and spat it out, bits of red bean paste and dough spraying everywhere.

Roadhog laughed as Junkrat pawed at his burnt tongue, which he stuck out in retaliation.

He pulled out the firecrackers instead. He’d rather burn things that were meant to be burnt, like good old fashioned explosives. He snapped his fingers to light a fuse and glanced back over at Roadhog. His partner’s ability to use chopsticks so delicately mystified him, given that the two of them almost exclusively ate with their hands. There were times where Roadhog was primal, rough, his humanity abandoned entirely. And there were times like now, when he could see the faintest glimmer of who Roadhog used to be, back when he was still Mako.

Junkrat had been feral his whole life, he knew nothing but the cutthroat world of the scavenger; Roadhog still had remnants of civility in him from whatever life he had had before the omnium explosion, before he became a Junker. Junkrat still didn’t know much about his past. Roadhog didn’t like to talk about it. Every time he tried to bring it up, Roadhog would deflect the question and manage to change the topic -- and Junkrat, so easily distracted, forgot what he had asked until they were well into an entirely unrelated conversation. All he had gathered was that Roadhog had raised pigs and presumably owned some kind of farm and that several of his prized rings were related to deceased family members.

He didn’t know where chopsticks fit in.

The firecracker exploded while he was distracted by his thoughts, and he jumped. “No, c’mon, I missed it!” he complained, fumbling for another one. He’d felt the explosion more than he’d seen it.

“Stop staring, then,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat hadn’t realised he had been so obvious. “Can’t help it, yer so good lookin’!” he said, giving Roadhog his most dazzling grin.

Roadhog considered this. “True,” he deadpanned, and Junkrat laughed.

Another round of fireworks lit up the sky above them. Junkrat stuck his next firecracker in his mouth like it was a cigar and laid down next to Roadhog, arms folded behind his head as he stared wide-eyed at the display, the bursts of colours burned into the backs of his eyelids every time he blinked.

After a moment, Roadhog put down the steamed buns and laid down next to him.

“Take that thing out of your mouth before it blows your face off.”

\---

Full of good food and burnt out from excitement, they were too tired to find a proper base of operations before they needed to sleep. They ended up dozing off together in a side alley, warmed by the mink blankets they had carried over from Korea and the supplementary heat of a rubbish bin fire.

Before he drifted off, Junkrat nudged Roadhog with his forehead. “Hey.” He raised his whisper loud enough to be heard over the crackling of the fire. “How’dya learn how to use chopsticks?”

There was a long silence, and Junkrat was beginning to think that Roadhog had fallen asleep without his noticing. “Sushi nights,” Roadhog finally said, “as a kid. My parents taught me.”

Junkrat didn’t know which part of this to address first. “You were a kid?”

“Fuck you.”

Junkrat was perplexed at his tone, then -- “No, no, no, I wasn’t insultin’ ya! Just meant… I have a hard time picturin’ what I ate for brekkie this mornin’--”

“A bag of crisps and one bite of my apple. Which you threw out the sidecar.”

“--let alone --wait, really? Impressive-- let alone what you were like back before I met ya.” Junkrat flopped his head onto Roadhog’s chest. “S’weird to think ya had a _family_. Ya never talk about them.”

“Don’t like dwelling on what’s dead and gone.”

“Yeah, but like… when I lost me oldies, I was a _kid_. I can barely remember what me mum looked like.” He paused. “Don’t think I do at all, actually. I think she had blonde hair? Anyway. You lost yer whole family when you were older, roight?”

“No, I didn’t.”

This was news to Junkrat. He lifted his chin up to peer at Roadhog’s face. “Really?”

“You’re still here.”

It took a moment for the implications to sink in, but once they did, Junkrat couldn’t stop grinning. “Yeah, ‘cause I’m yer family now!”

A puff of laughter from the filters of Roadhog’s gas mask ruffled Junkrat’s hair. “Yeah, you are. Idiot.”


	11. Chapter 11

It was hard, finding a place in the congested city that they could successfully hijack as a base of operations. Nothing stayed empty for long, leaving very little in the way of housing options. After searching for a while, they no longer bothered to keep an eye out for an elusive abandoned place to serve as home. Living in the streets worked for them -- until the skies opened up. It was freezing and biting, a kind of rain Junkrat had never experienced in the arid climate of the Outback, not even on the nights where it was cold enough for a frost to form.

Junkrat swore heavily as they searched for cover. They could only linger in stores for so long before they started arousing suspicion. They had yet to build a reputation as a pair of criminals in Beijing, but their very appearance, coupled with generally shifty behaviour, was cause for alarm.

They overturned a recently emptied recycling dumpster and sat inside it, using it as a makeshift roof. From their vantage point in the alleyway, they could see the throngs of pedestrians braving the elements, some scurrying for cover with soggy newspapers held over their heads, others walking briskly with their heads down and umbrellas in hand. Across the street, an omnic left its apartment tower, rubber gum boots and a wide-brimmed rain hat on to protect the more sensitive bits of its machinery.

Junkrat scowled. “Look at that smug little bastard. He gets a roof over his head and we don’t? He’s a bloody machine, s’not like he gets cold!”

Roadhog grunted in agreement. “He doesn’t deserve it.”

“No, he doesn’t!” Junkrat said, full of righteous indignation. He rubbed his hands together. They were clammy from the cold and wet, and he hated it. “Maybe if we, ah, _asked him nicely_ , he’d be willing to loan us his place.”

Roadhog snorted. “Worth a shot.”

“Yeah, what’s the harm in tryin’?” Junkrat snickered and ducked back out into the downpour. He picked up a piece of rusty metal piping and tapped it against the palm of his mechanical hand. It made a menacing, rhythmic clink  as he approached the omnic, who was fumbling to lock up his apartment.

Junkrat opened his mouth to shout “hey!” -- but only half of the syllable made it out before a hand clamped over his mouth. He dropped the pipe in surprise, then wrenched his head down and away, curling in on himself as much as he could manage. Experience and sheer faith told him that Roadhog wouldn’t hesitate to blow off his assailant’s head, and Junkrat wanted to give him the clearest line of sight possible.

His attacker dropped to the ground, Junkrat beneath him, just as a shot rang out, a lethal projectile whistling through the air above them.

All the wind had been knocked out of Junkrat when he hit the ground, but once he recovered, he elbowed the man in the gut and wormed his way out from beneath him. A Junker had once called him a _slippery little rat_ as an insult, but he considered it an ability to be proud of.

Roadhog reached them in record time. He grabbed Junkrat’s attacker by the neck and hauled him upright. It was then that Junkrat realised that he had assumed wrong, and the person was a _she_ \-- a butch woman with a short haircut and interlocking Venus symbols tattooed on her cheek. Small in stature but powerfully built, she _looked_ like a dangerous criminal, with a bullish expression and a staggering amount of tattoos peeking out from beneath the cuffs of her sleeves and the collar of her black jacket. Junkrat desperately wanted to take off his jumper so he could flash his own tattooed bicep in return, but he was soaking wet and shivering. He thought better of it.

“Oh, by the Iris,” breathed a voice behind them. In all the commotion, Junkrat had nearly forgotten about his initial target. He looked over his shoulder to find the omnic quivering in its gum boots. It dropped its keys twice before it ran in the opposite direction, one hand clutching its hat to its head and the other gripping an umbrella.

Nobody was pleased. Junkrat and the woman locked eyes, both thoroughly sour over the loss of their prey.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” Roadhog growled. Likely the only reason why he hadn’t done so already was because he, like Junkrat, was curious about _why_ she had intervened. She certainly didn’t look like an omnic sympathiser. The woman answered in Mandarin, slowly and deliberately reaching for her pocket. Junkrat picked up his pipe and wielded it like a bat. Roadhog cocked his gun.

The woman withdrew an innocuous looking device, and Junkrat lowered his weapon slightly. It didn’t look dangerous; it was a small clip-on gadget, similar in size and shape to the key fob for Roadhog’s motorcycle. With a twiddle of her thumb on a side dial, the woman directed her next words into the device.

“You have no idea who you’re messing with,” the device translated, the English words mimicking the woman’s raspy intonation perfectly -- Junkrat wouldn’t have realised it was machine-translated if he hadn’t witnessed it himself.

The red dot of a laser winked onto Roadhog’s forehead and hovered there.

Junkrat was surrounded by water, but his mouth went perfectly dry. “Let her go, ‘Hog,” he managed. He let his pipe clatter to the sidewalk, eyes darting around for the source of the sniper, but he noticed nothing unusual. It took a lot to scare him -- hell, a healthy dose of fear would have kept him out of more than one bad scrape, but fear was a commodity he sorely lacked -- but the thought of Roadhog taking a bullet to the brain _terrified_ him.

Roadhog released her and lowered his gun. The red laser dot remained in place.

“You cost me big,” the woman said. There was a slight amount of delay between her native language and its translation. “That was _my_ mark.”

“Didn’t see yer name on it--” The words fell out of Junkrat’s mouth before he realised that it was unwise to antagonise someone who had their sights set on Roadhog’s head. He clamped his mouth shut, but the device was already spitting out a translation into Mandarin.

The woman’s lip curled. “You didn’t see the symbol?” She jerked her head at a small piece of graffiti on the side of the building, a red emblem that had entirely escaped Junkrat’s notice. It reminded him of the crude symbols that delineated different gangs in Junkertown. He was beginning to think he had made a grave error in going after this particular omnic. “You must be new here.” She clipped the device to her jacket’s collar and folded her arms. With a wave of her hand, the red dot disappeared. “Come with me. You lost me this, you’re making up for it. Don’t try anything funny. There are still eyes on you.”

Unsettled, Junkrat looked around for the hidden sniper again. He glanced at Roadhog and shrugged. Getting involved with a dangerous Chinese triad hadn’t been on his agenda for the day, but if it meant getting out of the rain, he’d take it.

The downpour began to lessen as they followed the woman through a maze of streets that occasionally looped back on each other, as if she was trying to ensure they wouldn’t be able to find their way to her base of operations on their own.

“What’d you want with that omnic anyhow?” Junkrat asked. “I was just gonna beat him up and take his key.”

“I know. And you would have ruined him for me. I need his internal workings.”

“What, like robot organs? Is there some kinda black market for robot parts?”

“Something like that.”

“Omnic organ trading. I love it.”

“Good. Because you’re going to be helping me to pay off your debt. That omnic we lost had a valuable set of servos that could have paid my rent for the next three months.” Junkrat didn’t know enough about paying for housing to tell just how expensive this was, but judging from her bitter tone, he gathered that it cost a pretty penny.

“I can get on board with that,” he said. “Do ya kill them afterwards?”

“Sometimes. If we’re taking their essentials. They’re usually good enough for other purposes.”

Roadhog spoke up. “A trafficking ring.”

They took her silence as a _yes_.

“Well, ‘sometimes’ is good enough for me!” Junkrat said jovially. “So, I reckon if we’re gonna be workin’ together, we probably oughta know yer name. Junkrat speakin’, and the big guy over there’s Roadhog.”

“You can just call me Lee.” She did not seem inclined to elaborate further. Junkrat attempted to fill the awkward silence that ensued, but all his conversation starters fizzled into nothing. After his pointing out a dead pigeon failed to garner any interest, he decided to shut up. Mostly because Roadhog gave him a look that managed to say _stop talking,_ even with his expression obscured by his mask.

The rest of the walk was quiet. They finally arrived at a massive, derelict warehouse. Lee keyed in a passcode. Both Junkrat and Roadhog wrung out their jumpers and shook themselves off, grateful to be out of the rain, while Lee stood aside, dripping dispassionately on the concrete floor and doing nothing about her appearance beyond slicking back her short hair.

“Finished?” she asked sardonically. She led them down a long hallway that emptied into a large room. Stacked with crates, it looked like the central den of operations. A few gang members had made an attempt to make it livable, with a handful of sleeping bags spread out on the ground and a table that appeared to have multiple overlapping card games in progress. If they tipped their heads back, they could see the dark grey blanket of clouds through a skylight, the torrential downpour leaving streaks on the filthy windowpanes.

On the far side of the room stood an omnic encircled by humans, its back turned to the door and hands clasped behind its back -- tied together, Junkrat assumed. It was hard to read its height from a distance, but he had the impression that it was tall, and it was noticeably robust, with broad shoulders and a thickly plated chest. It looked like someone capable of taking more than a few hits. A real challenge.

Junkrat rubbed his hands together. “Got yerselves a big one there, eh? What, are ya gutting it? ‘Cause I’d _love_ to volunteer my services...”

Lee glanced back at him. “No, and don’t let him catch you saying that.”

Junkrat snorted. “Like I couldn’t take it? Me and my mate here, we’d have it in a heartbeat, wouldn’t we, ‘Hog?”

“Yes.”

Lee wheeled around to face them. “I _said_ , don’t let him catch you saying that,” she growled. “He’s our Boss.”

Junkrat couldn’t help it. He pointed his finger at the omnic and screeched, “ _That’s_ your boss? It’s a bloody _omnic_!”

Lee shrugged. “And he’s good at what he does. If it wasn’t for us, he’d be running a business. It was his job, I guess, being a backup if his company’s bigwig couldn’t make it to a meeting. He got tired of being in his shadow, killed the poor son of a bitch, and left. Free will and all.”

Junkrat was apoplectic. “It doesn’t _have_ free will! It’s following its damn programming and bein’ a business leader, just for a gang instead of a suit, that’s not free will, that’s -- why would ya even _want_ it as yer leader, I--”

He felt Roadhog’s steadying hand on his shoulder, grounding him long enough to take a deep breath. By now they had garnered the attention of most of the other gang members, although their leader still hadn’t turned around. Junkrat gestured rudely at its back.

“Likewise,” the omnic replied in perfect English.

Junkrat froze, hand still mid-air. A pair of thin incisions on the back of the omnic’s head glowed bright red, and he realised with a trickling sense of dread that they were eyes. He didn’t like the idea of something having eyes in the back of its head. _Bloody unnatural_ , he thought.

“Lee, who are these?” the omnic continued, switching to its native Mandarin.

Lee left Junkrat and Roadhog behind to step closer. “Boss, I had to intervene, they ruined my objective--”

The translator device was still activated, and Junkrat could hear the muffled beginnings of their argument before Lee realised it was still repeating everything they said and switched it off.

“What did I say about violence against westerners, it draws too much attention, we don’t need to unnecessarily complicate things--”

They furiously whispered at each other in Mandarin until they finally seemed to reach an accord. The Boss turned to look at Junkrat and Roadhog. “You’ll be accompanying Lee on her next venture. We’ll decide where to go from there. That’ll be all.”

Junkrat had the impression that he had just been dismissed, and he did not like it at all. He was a free Junker, nobody told him what to do. “ _That’ll be all_ ,” he sneered. “No, _you_ listen, I gotta few questions first.” The first was the most pressing. “If yer an omnic, why’re ya traffickin’ them? How do I know yer not makin’ some kinda -- some kinda evil robot army with all this?”

The omnic spread his hands wide. “Why do humans traffic other humans? They’re inferior models and make for good labor. As for the second part, I suppose you don’t. Just know that others have questioned my motives...” He gestured at the group of humans around him, who nodded. “And none of them are capable of questioning further. Next question?”

Junkrat was not impressed. He had been on the receiving end of more intimidating threats. “Why should I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t. Just like I imagine I shouldn’t trust you.”

“Yeah, ya really shouldn’t.”

“But you’ve sorely inconvenienced my operations, and I am offering you an opportunity to work out your apparent aggression towards my kind. So for the time being, we should work together.”

Junkrat considered it. The ramifications of refusing could be severe, and he had pissed off enough people as it was. Besides, being around omnics and their body parts could provide the inspiration he needed for hatching a new plan to execute their god program. “Deal,” he said.

Neither of them offered a hand to shake.

Lee led them back to the warehouse’s main door. “He’s a lost cause now, thanks to you, but meet me outside that omnic’s apartment tomorrow. Eleven o’clock in the morning. I’ll know where you are if you don’t show. We have eyes and ears all over this city.”

“Give us a better reason to show,” Roadhog said.

“Yeah!” Junkrat piped in. “We don’t work for free.”

Lee scowled at them. “You’re _repaying_ a debt, you’re not _getting_ paid. You already cost us enough today.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Junkrat said. “We both lost out on that one, we didn’t get anything out of it ourselves!”

Lee stared at them, eyes flicking over to Junkrat’s mechanical arm and leg. “Fine,” she finally said. “If anything we get turns out to be a dud, you can have it. Use its parts for your prosthetics.”

“Fair enough.” Junkrat was satisfied with this idea.

Lee scrolled open the door for them, and Junkrat let out an audible groan when he saw that it was raining again. Lee had already turned away to leave them to their fate and was unclipping her device when she paused. “Dixia Cheng.”

“Dixia what?”

She clicked the scroll wheel on the side of her translator. “The underground city. Check out the underground city,” she said, “if you need a place to sleep.” She continued walking.

Junkrat and Roadhog looked at each other, then ran after her, leaving the warehouse door gaping. Gusts of rain and wind blew in behind them. “Wait, wait,” Junkrat said. “Y’can’t just say somethin’ like that and _leave_ \-- what underground city?”

“It’s an old bomb shelter complex. From the Cold War era, it was Chairman Mao’s idea. I’ve never been inside -- no one I know has been aside. My grandfather visited it once when he was a child, when parts of it were a tourist attraction, but he’s long dead. Barely anyone is aware it exists anymore, and most of the entrances are lost.”

“Then... how are we supposed to find it?”

“I said, _most_ are lost. My grandfather supposedly knew of three, but today, I have only heard of where one used to be. It’s walled off, but...” she glanced down at the grenade canisters in the harness Junkrat had slung around his waist. “I don’t think that will be much of a problem for someone like you.”

Junkrat puffed his chest out, hands on his hips. “Sure it won’t be! No wall’s ever stood in my way before.”

“Where is it?”

Junkrat tuned out the directions that Lee gave them -- he wasn’t going to remember them anyway, Roadhog could take care of it -- and instead struggled with pulling the back of his jumper over his head.

“You look ridiculous,” Roadhog told him when he turned back to face him.

“Least I’ll be dryer than you!” Junkrat retorted.

“And colder.”

Junkrat looked down at the bare stretch of torso that was exposed as a result of attempting to use his jumper as a hood. “Eh, it’s a tradeoff.”

Lee shook her head and headed back down the hallway with nary a goodbye.

“Hold on,” Junkrat called after her. “How are we supposed to find our way back to that apartment from this underground city place?”

A nasty smile played on Lee’s lips. “Good luck.”


	12. Chapter 12

The Underground City entrance was, indeed, blocked off. It was in one of the more dilapidated areas of the city, and Junkrat wouldn’t have thought anything of it had he been walking past it on the street -- it was simply a discoloured patch of wall, a bricked-in doorway so insignificant that a pile of crates had been discarded in front of it.

Junkrat shoved aside the crates to get a better look at what he had to work with. It was still pouring, and his hair was flopping down in front of his face and obscuring his vision. He flipped it back. “I mean, I can definitely blow through it, no worries on that front.”

“Yeah, but you can’t do it quietly.”

“‘Course not! Explosions wouldn’t be any fun if they were quiet.” He tapped his chin with his index finger. “But that’s a bit of a problem here, ain’t it?”

“Just a bit.” There was one entrance, and it was on a street with several other dingy shops. Even if they were able to hide a hole in the wall with the crates, there was no way they could muffle the sound of an explosion.

Junkrat unzipped the pink duffel bag they used for storage and pulled out a mine, drumming his fingers against the metal casing. He was cold and wet, and if they were going to hatch a devious plan, they needed somewhere to do it that wasn’t the middle of the streets. A concrete plan would be useless if they blew their cover when attempting to unearth their hideout, however.

Their surroundings flashed white for a fraction of a second, a massive crack of thunder boomed out above them, and Junkrat all but jumped out of his skin. “Sonova--” he gasped, then inspiration struck him. He whooped with laughter, flinging his arms around Roadhog. “She’s back!” he crowed. “Lady Luck!” He grabbed his mine and a block of C4. As he attached them to the lower part of the wall, he began counting off the seconds between each flash of lightning and the thunder that followed.

They cleared the area. “Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock,” Junkrat chanted. He pressed the button of his detonator on the final _tock_ , just as another crack of thunder sounded overhead, louder and closer than ever. It masked the _kaboom_ of the explosion, and when the smoke cleared, they could see the large hole that had been blasted through the brick wall. Junkrat clawed away some of the bricks that still hung on, and with the crates and rubbish stacked in front of it, it made for an acceptable secret entrance. As long as no one moved the crates, but given the general state of the area, the chances of that happening were slim -- and the chances of anyone crawling inside the musty, pitch black hole in the wall were even lower.

Junkrat ducked inside first. He took a step forward into the unknown, brazenly assuming that there would be ground beneath his feet, and found emptiness. He yelped as he promptly fell down a flight of stairs.

Roadhog flicked on the torch to illuminate their surroundings and shone it on Junkrat, who was in a crumpled heap against the heavy metal door that was at the base of the landing. “You okay?”

“Fuckin’-- who’s brilliant idea was this?” Junkrat spluttered as he gathered his bearings and bounded to his feet.

Roadhog snickered. “Gotta get below ground somehow.” The metal door that led to the underground city wasn’t locked, which was less surprising when Junkrat remembered that the entrances were all sealed up and, for people who weren’t demolition experts, a solid wall made out of brick and concrete tended to be more of a foolproof barrier than a simple locked door.

Inside, the ground squelched beneath Junkrat’s boot. He looked down to find white mould growing on the concrete floor and gingerly stepped out of it. The light from the torch cut a beam through the pitch black darkness, and Roadhog swung it from side to side as they entered the depths of the subterranean bomb shelter.

They followed a long, branching corridor with a high, arched ceiling and countless twists and turns. They reminded Junkrat of pipes, pipes that apparently wound beneath the surface of Beijing, a network of tunnels and chambers that created a secret city that had been lost to the annals of time.

He felt more like a sewer rat than ever.

The walls of the corridor must have been white, once upon a time, but now they were a dingy grey, all peeling paint and corroded concrete. Roadhog shone his light on a solitary piece of cloth tacked to one of the walls. Neither of them could read the Chinese characters painted on it. They passed it by.

“Shouldn’t go in too far,” Roadhog muttered.

Junkrat envisioned getting lost in a maze of tunnels that must have covered thousands of square kilometres. He shivered. “Yeah, no complaints here.” It was a fine line to tread: far enough away where they could be sure of privacy, should anyone choose to poke their head in the crumbling wall, but not so far that they couldn’t remember the way back.

At first, Junkrat thought that the first chamber they entered was empty, nothing but debris as far as he could see. As good a spot as any. Then Roadhog scanned the room with the torchlight. It landed on a solid figure.

A single, solitary wooden chair stood in the centre of the room. Its presence was inexplicably ominous, and Junkrat glanced up at the ceiling, half expecting to find a noose there. “Well, that’s not creepy at all,” he said, laughing nervously. There was a chalkboard on one of the walls: a classroom, maybe, for a city that never existed? “Nope. _Definitely_ not,” he said. “This place gives me the willies. Let’s find another room.”

The second room _was_ empty: Junkrat made sure of that, hiding behind Roadhog as he swept the floor with the beam of light. Satisfied that there was no stray furniture to scare him shitless, he left Roadhog’s side. He didn’t consider himself a _coward_ , far from it, he had too much bravery for his own good -- but he was twitchy by nature, and seeing unexpected objects while wandering through a dark, damp abandoned bomb shelter was enough to make anyone jump.

Roadhog adjusted the light so it was aimed straight ahead of them instead of at the floor.

Junkrat found himself staring directly into a pair of soulless eyes, and that was most _certainly_ a human face looking back at him.

He screamed in spite of himself, staggering back and tripping on a piece of rubble. The sound echoed hollowly in the chamber, and he screwed his eyes shut and clamped his hands over his ears to avoid having to hear the reverberations and face whatever had met his gaze.

Roadhog gently pulled his hands away from his head.

“Leave me alone!” Junkrat shouted, stubbornly resisting Roadhog’s efforts in his panic-fueled state.

“It’s a poster,” he heard once Roadhog had succeeded in prising his hands partway off his ears.

Junkrat dropped his arms and opened his eyes. He found himself facing a worn poster of the man who was responsible for the decrepit labyrinth they found themselves in, Chairman Mao. He reached out and touched the brittle paper, just to confirm that it was, in fact, only a picture. The century-old paper crumbled easily, its image preserved only by the lack of light underground.

Junkrat looked around the rest of the chamber. It was like another universe, a moment frozen in time from a hundred years ago, with propaganda stencilled directly on the walls and the occasional poster that showed just how dated the room really was.

He rubbed the back of his neck, a little sheepish now that his heart had stopped pounding wildly. “Well, then. Feelin’ a bit silly now.”

Roadhog patted his head in wordless reassurance.

They turned to leave the room without even discussing it. Junkrat would not have been able to sleep with Mao’s eyes on him, and he was fairly certain Roadhog felt the same, even if he hadn’t reacted quite as violently as Junkrat had.

“Wait,” Junkrat said. He backtracked and ripped the crumbling poster off the wall and destroyed it. It was partly an act of defiance, an anarchist’s revolt against a symbol of authority, and partly a petulant form of revenge for making a fool out of him.

“That’s better,” he said, satisfied. “Still don’t wanna sleep here, mind you, but least his ugly mug’s gone.”

The third time was the charm. It had to be; neither of them wanted to stray much further from the entrance, which was now well out of sight. Like the others, the chamber was still moist, eerie, and in utter disrepair, but it didn’t give Junkrat a near heart attack, and he considered that a win. The walls were mercifully void of portraits, and he had been prepared to find furniture in there: a bicycle, an iron bed frame, and a dresser with its drawers ajar. It wasn’t quite as unsettling as the solitary chair, for some reason.

It was better than sleeping out in the rain, at least.

\---

Junkrat had hoped that his first mission with Lee would be similar to the one that they had spoiled. The thought of kidnapping an omnic, or simply bullying it into going along with whatever the Boss had in mind was a strangely compelling thought. His hopes were dashed, however, when he found out that their day’s agenda wasn’t quite as exciting.

They had left early to allow themselves plenty of time to find their way to the designated meeting point, but Lee had still beaten them there and was waiting impatiently, arms folded across her chest. She led them to a storage complex, a gated-in yard filled with large cargo containers.

Junkrat scratched his head. “What--”

“Shhh.” The shushing noise needed no translation. Lee unlocked one of the containers, tossed in an electromagnetic pulse device, and slammed the door shut once more. When she opened it again, Junkrat saw dozens of omnics slumped on the floor, and a grin spread across his face.

Junkrat was no doctor, but he was sure Ava would agree that extracting robotic parts was nothing like performing organ removal surgery on a human. Any idiot with a manual and half a brain could do it -- like Roadhog, a comparison Junkrat lovingly informed his partner of -- and he was a _genius_. Digging around in mechanical objects was his specialty, and he took a sick sort of pleasure in opening up an omnic’s stomach to expose the mass of internal wiring.

He abandoned his station to peek at Roadhog’s and Lee’s. A few of the other triad members had shown up with cold metal tables for them to work on and plenty of equipment. White cloths were spread over the surfaces of the tables to catch any oil drippings, gloves were donned to avoid fingerprints, and they were each assigned an omnic to dissect. Junkrat was curious to see the insides of the other bots before they were mutilated. Roadhog’s omnic’s chest plate was removed, exposing a central core and twin purifying filters, one of which could, allegedly, be removed and implanted without harming the donor.

Lee’s omnic’s head was split wide open, and Junkrat was more than a little freaked out by the skeleton and unblinking eyeballs that lay beneath its face plate. The skull itself was thickly encased to protect the delicate hardware within.

“Get back to work, rat,” Lee said as she worked to open up the skull further. It was clear that this omnic was not going to be one of the lucky ones that survived the ordeal -- if becoming forced labor was, in fact, lucky. He was going to be losing an essential piece of equipment. “If dirt is blown in there because you left him open too long, and he can’t work properly as a result, the Boss will have your head.”

“I’d like to see him try,” Junkrat scoffed, but he returned to his own station to extract the wires he was ordered to retrieve. Seeing the insides of the robots only hammered in just how inhuman they were. He saw nothing akin to a soul, no pulsing heart or brain to feel and think with, just metallic approximations of organs. Deluded pieces of machinery, that’s all they were.

Wrist deep in robot guts, it occurred to him just how _easy_ it would be to kill the omnic and make it look like an accident. He wanted to -- oh, how he wanted to -- but he begrudgingly exercised a rare modicum of self-control. Looking at the internal workings of their test subjects had gotten him thinking, and he didn’t want to turn an entire gang of organised criminals against him at this stage in the planning process. They could prove useful.

“All patched up,” Junkrat announced once he’d sealed up the comatose omnic after removing and packaging the requisite body parts. “Think it’ll even notice something’s missin’?”

“Nah,” Roadhog said. He held up his extracted purifying filter and jerked a thumb at its former owner. “He might, though.” They both laughed raucously until Lee swore out loud.

They looked over at her. “What?”

She held up a dented, rectangular chunk of hardware. “His brain’s useless. It’s been knocked around too many times. He must have fallen when he passed out just now and that did him in.” She glanced down at its open chest, where the core had stopped pistoning. “And he’s dead.”

“Huh.” Junkrat leaned in to Roadhog. “What happens to dead omnics?”

“Why do you care?”

“I got an idea. Well, part of one. It’s still cookin’. But I got a feeling it’s gonna be a real humdinger. Anyway, dead omnics. I ain’t never seen one in a junkyard before -- don’t tell me they bury them.”

“They probably don’t.” Roadhog gave a thoughtful hum. “Never thought about it before. Too busy killing them to think about where they go after. Why don’t they just boot ‘em up again?”

Junkrat frowned, pondering. This was too much philosophical thinking for this early in the day. “Yeah, why not? S’not like they got souls, they just pretend they do. Like yeah, some sap like that Mondatta who took a bullet to the head, or this bastard who’s gone and got his head all banged up, I get that causing irreparable damage to their…their processing units? Whatever makes ‘em go. But the rest of them? Haven’t got an earthly.” Junkrat raised his voice so that Lee’s translator could detect it. “Oi, Lee! Whaddya do with dead bots like that?”

“Go get another omnic,” Lee replied.

They obliged and set up another station, the two living omnics set aside and replaced by a fresh set of cold metal bodies. Junkrat looked at the sheet to see what he’d be taking from this sucker -- non-essential thermo-regulating pads -- then looked at Lee expectantly. He still wanted an answer.

“This one will be repurposed,” Lee told him, once she was satisfied that they both had resumed working. “Melted down and recycled. Found him alone on the street, he couldn’t even remember his name.”

“So y’were doin’ him a favor, really.”

“Exactly. That’s what happens when you find a dead, nameless omnic with no apparent kin. I think others can be cremated with their express wishes. Some humans keep their dead omnics in the basement as a memorial.” Junkrat could not imagine why a human would ever want to welcome an omnic into their family, let alone keep it around after it died. “Most others are interred.”

 _This_ got Junkrat’s attention. “So, wait, yer telling me there’s an omnic graveyard out there?” he asked, standing up a little straighter.

“Sure. Get back to work.”

Roadhog cocked his head questioningly at Junkrat.

Junkrat grinned and lowered his voice. “Roadhog, mate. We’re goin’ graverobbing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an FYI, the next chapter's almost certainly going to be late and I apologize -- I'm working tomorrow, have my brother's graduation party to attend on Sunday, and the next chapter is ~twice as long as a normal chapter so I probably won't have it ready for Monday :<


	13. Chapter 13

Finding the omnic graveyard wasn’t too hard once they knew what to look for, after a bit more digging around. A few of the other triad members who weren’t entirely wary of the two of them spoke English, and Junkrat and Roadhog were able to get its location without arousing _too_ much suspicion.

“ _This_ is a graveyard?” Junkrat had said when they staked the place out during the daytime, gesturing at the massive stone building in front of them. “Where’s the gravestones? Who keeps graves inside a building?”

“Robots, apparently,” Roadhog had replied.

Scoping the place out in advance was necessary in order to find an unobtrusive path in and out of the building. Junkrat couldn’t be sure, but he anticipated needing to make return visits to the omnic graveyard, so for once, they actively tried to find a way to enter without leaving behind any traces of their break-in. They focused on the back door, where the custodian took his smoke breaks, and rigged the door so that it wouldn’t automatically lock behind him after his final cigarette of the day. There was still the security cameras to worry about, but causing them to malfunction would only draw more attention to the forced entry. They just had to hope that there was no one on patrol at night, and that no one would bother sitting through the night’s security tapes without any signs of a disturbance to tip them off.

Besides, they were both thoroughly tired of working their way around security cameras.

Once night fell and they made it inside, they picked their way through the staff-only back corridors to the public viewing plots.

Compared to other locations like London, Beijing treated its omnics fairly well: well enough to devote a large, multi-storied building to their deceased, at any rate. It didn’t resemble a traditional graveyard, but then again, an omnic wasn’t a traditional living being. More of a morgue than an actual graveyard, the first floor’s plot was cold and clinical, with polished stacks of steel drawers that lined the walls and formed orderly rows, each with a computer interface mounted at its end. Studying it, Junkrat figured it had to retrieve and lower the drawers that were out of arm’s reach, and a glance upwards at the machinery on the ceiling confirmed his suspicions. It was a fitting final resting place for its metal inhabitants.

In lieu of headstones, plaques were affixed on the exterior of each drawer to identify the body contained within. Many had flowers attached next to them from well-wishers who had come to pay their respects. Junkrat tested out one of the handles on the drawers. It slid open easily, much to his initial surprise -- but then again, when a corpse never rotted, it stood to reason that a mourner would want to be able to continue to gaze upon their loved one’s face.

Junkrat tapped the sheet of glass that served as a barrier between him and the dead omnic within the drawer.

“You gonna tell me what your plan is now?” Roadhog asked.

“Sure thing, mate.” Junkrat balled his metal hand up into a fist. “Hijacking an omnic didn’t work out too well for us last time, now did it? I gotta better idea, this time. You and me, we’re gonna frankenstein together our own host bot for Kajura.” He wound his fist back and shattered the glass, pulling aside shards so he could get to the lifeless omnic. “Just call me Dr. Junkenstein!” He had briefly considered stealing a whole omnic, but he had no way of knowing the circumstances under which the omnic died. If he wanted to be absolutely certain that his project would be 100% functional, he was going to have to assemble it himself.

“What happened to not leaving a trace?” Roadhog watched as Junkrat crunched his way through the broken glass.

“Ah, there weren’t no flowers on this bloke’s grave.” He gestured at the thousands of drawers that surrounded them, stretching from floor to ceiling. “What’re the odds that someone’s gonna come in and visit it anytime soon? We keep all the glass inside the drawer, and no one has to know. Now come on, help me figure out what parts of it are still useful.”

As he’d suspected, many of the robots that they dissected had their own missing internal pieces. It looked like organ donors weren’t exclusive to the black market; omnics that had died in less sketchy conditions and been respectfully interred were legal donors themselves. It was an exercise in perseverance, figuring out which body parts were still functional and which could be successfully spliced together. There was also the aesthetic component of it: Junkrat wanted his construction to be as giant and awe-inspiring as possible, and he had no qualms about passing over a pair of perfectly functional, if rather scrawny, legs.

Time ticked on. The number of graves they robbed and the pile of body parts they were accumulating grew. They cut it close, finally leaving the facility near daybreak, once they’d ensured that there was no immediately apparent evidence of their crime. They had brought the chopper with them, both to transport their bounty and to make a quick getaway, if necessary.

They had just enough time to grab a few winks before they were due to meet Lee for the day’s work. She eyed the two clearly exhausted Junkers, sluggish and yawning, but didn’t press for explanations. They were able to assist in transporting a group of slave labor omnics, and that was all she really cared about.

That night, they began their new project. The room in the underground bunker that they had carved out as their own looked like a mad scientist’s lab, body parts strewn everywhere in a seemingly haphazard fashion. Roadhog tried to rearrange them but stopped when Junkrat snapped at him -- he had a _system_! It didn’t _look_ like it, but it made sense to him, and as far as he was concerned, his organizational system was the only one that mattered in this operation. He was the brains behind the mechanics of building what essentially amounted to a killer robot. Roadhog was merely his assistant.

It wasn’t his dream workspace by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a flexible kind of guy. You had to be adaptable to survive the irradiated Outback. They got their hands on several portable industrial lights that made the underground room as bright as day, and black plastic tarps served as a makeshift carpet that shielded them and their cannibalised omnics from the ground’s moisture.

They settled into a routine of paying back their dues to the triad during the day and working on their project in their downtime. Junkrat consulted the mechanical handbooks they’d stolen from the library as he slowly grafted together his creation. There was a slight snag that he hadn’t anticipated, however. Roadhog, through no fault of his own, was proving immensely distracting to him.

Junkrat had burned off all his sexual frustration when he was angry over their botched mission in Korea, and again when he was so intensely focused on figuring out their next step. Now that his mind was his own once more, it was starting to creep back. There was just never enough time to do anything about it. By the time he could steal a kiss from Roadhog, they were both tired enough that it never went further than some fruitless groping.

Still, Roadhog kept sneaking into his mind at the most inopportune times.

They had persuaded an omnic to meet with the Boss and were escorting him to the premises. _Kidnapped_ probably would have been the more accurate term, but none of them cared about semantics. Junkrat was supposed to be keeping an eye on the omnic in case it tried to escape from Roadhog’s iron grip, but his gaze kept shifting to the robot’s captor instead.

As he watched Roadhog, his body pulsed with heat that radiated from the centre of his chest. He felt like he was burning up, an unseen flame at the end of a fuse that was moments away from exploding.

“What’s the matter with you?” Lee asked, eyeing him.

“You okay?” Roadhog added, and a rush of affection surged through Junkrat at the concern in his voice.

“Yeah, m’all good, don’t worry about it!” He must have looked every bit as lovesick as he felt. He really needed to work this primal urge out of his system. He kept getting too far into his head, too deep into graphic fantasies about Roadhog, too consumed by that white hot _need_ for intimate physical contact, and all of his unconsummated attraction was beginning to affect him to the point where it was outwardly visible. He was, as always, too easily swayed by his own emotions.

They led their quarry to the Boss. The triad members had cobbled together his makeshift throne out of odds and ends found on the streets and around their repurposed warehouse: long legs made out of wire spools and cinderblocks, a seat that looked like it had been ripped straight from a subway train, arms fashioned out of metal pipes. It was every bit as unnatural as the omnic that perched on it, one leg crossed over the other in a manner that was too human for Junkrat’s comfort.

Lee motioned for Roadhog to deposit their prisoner at the Boss’s feet. The two omnics looked at each other, but not as equals.

The sound of the Boss’s fans whirring was eerily similar to a sigh. “I suppose you know why you’re here, don’t you, Wire?”

“Boss, I-- Please, I just need a little more time,” Wire pleaded, his hands clasped earnestly in front of him.

“Two months, Wire. That was the deal.”

“Yes, yes, of course, I know--”

“It has been two months, Wire.”

“Please, just one more week, I’ll come into some money next Friday, I can pay it off then!”

The Boss shook his head, emitting a clicking noise of disapproval. “We gave you those ocular units in good faith, Wire. You _do_ remember the terms of your contract, don’t you?”

If Wire had been a human, Junkrat was certain he would have been sweating bullets. “Y-yes, but Boss, I promise...”

“Your two months are up, Wire, and your debt is still unpaid. I’m sure you must understand, there’s really no other option but to repossess them.”

“No, no, Boss, I can get you the money! I need these eyes, I can’t function without them!”

“You leave me with no other choice, Wire. I can only be so generous, you see. I have a business to think about.”

Wire’s head darted back and forth, seeking an escape route as he panicked. Lee had already brandished her knife, fully prepared to pry off his faceplate and repossess his ocular units.

But Wire was bold, or perhaps just stupid; he tried to make a break for it regardless. Without even rising to his feet, the Boss raised his hand, and an arc of electricity zapped the escapee. The frame of Wire’s body shook violently before it went rigid and fell to the floor with a _clank._

Junkrat and Roadhog glanced at each other, impressed in spite of themselves.

“A shame,” the Boss said, with another of those mechanical sighs. “I did hope that we’d be able to resolve this without a fuss, but no one ever wishes to cooperate, do they? Lee, if you’ll just take what we’re owed....”

 

\---

 

“Alright, I’ll admit it,” Junkrat said once they had retired to their hideout for the night. “Some omnics got their uses.” He held up the central processing unit he had excised from the omnic skull he was bent over. “‘Sides from being spare parts, I mean. I can see that whole… _zap_ thing bein’ useful.” He blew some dust out of the robotic brain and examined it. It looked sturdy and didn’t have any dings or dents like the one Lee had extracted earlier.

They had made significant progress on their project. With its mismatched parts and the Junkers’ aesthetic modifications (spikes, everything could use more spikes on it), it cut an imposing silhouette. Junkrat wasn’t quite ready to attempt to reanimate it, but he felt that it was time to assess the functionality of the brain they had acquired from the graveyard. He expected to be able to make it whirr to life in his hands, but try as he might, he couldn’t seem to activate it. Finally, he cracked the brain open to peek at its inner workings, only to find that it had corroded from lack of use -- and he had been sure to choose a recently deceased omnic as his brain donor. Apparently they deteriorated at an extremely rapid rate.

Junkrat swore and sat back on his haunches. “Change of plans, ‘Hog,” he said. “Looks like we’re gonna need to get our brain from a live omnic, so it’s all fresh and juiced and ready to go when we put it in Junkenstein.”

“I thought _you_ were Dr. Junkenstein,” Roadhog said.

“I am!”

“So it’s Junkenstein’s Monster, not Junkenstein.”

“Mate, _I’m_ makin’ it. It’s mine. I can call it whatever the fuck I want, and I want it to have my name. Its name is Junkenstein, my name is Junkenstein, case closed.”

“I’m not calling you Junkenstein.”

“Fair enough.” He admired his handiwork. “Still, just look at this thing, it’s a beaut. And they said I’d never amount to anything! Anyway, real live omnic brain. Where’re we gonna get that?”

“Think I might got a contender.” Junkrat waited for Roadhog to elaborate. “Who were we just talking about?”

Junkrat had to think about it. “Junkenstein?” He wrinkled his brow in confusion before comprehension dawned on him. With a wicked grin, he mimed zapping Roadhog with the outstretched palm of his hand. “The Boss!”

“The Boss,” Roadhog agreed.

\---

Of all the criminal things Junkrat and Roadhog had done together, planning an assassination was a first. It was something new. Different. Exciting.

“Okay, but the freak’s got all his goons swarmin’ the place, can’t exactly just waltz on in all casually. Pretty sure that’d attract some attention -- he’d be gone by the time we took out everyone on the way to him.”

“We need the element of surprise,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat grinned at him. “We’re good at that.” Subtlety may not have been their strong suit, but they _were_ very good at scaring people with unexpected assaults. They liked to enter with a bang, an expression which Junkrat took literally more often than not. It made a statement.

They camped out on the rooftop of the warehouse. The view was a little dingy from the permanent layer of filth that had accumulated on the skylight windows, but they were still able to easily see everything that occurred below.

“Wish we had some kinda mic,” Junkrat said. He pressed his hands and the tip of his nose to the dirty pane of glass, as if flattening himself against the window would help him hear better.

“Wouldn’t be able to understand them even if we did,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat turned his head to look at him, his long nose smudged with dirt. “Good point.” He looked back down at the scene unfolding below them, with the Boss addressing what must have been fifty triad members circled around him. “They gotta be wrappin’ it up soonish, don’t they? Not like they all sleep here. Just some of them, by the looks of it.” As far as he could tell, the Boss rarely left the room to visit the rest of the warehouse, but there were a handful of sleeping bags near the makeshift throne that likely belonged to the more devout followers.

There was a visible commotion below that made both Junkrat and Roadhog perk up with interest. Apparently one of those followers had said something the Boss didn’t agree with. The omnic grabbed the hapless gang member by the scruff of his collar, the palm of its other hand already sparking with electricity.

The Boss was tall, significantly taller than the vast majority of his gang. To drag the offending man close to his face in a sufficiently intimidating fashion, he had to very nearly bend over double.

He promptly dropped the man and straightened up with alarming alacrity. In one swift jerk that would have broken any organic being’s neck, his head snapped back at an unnatural angle to stare at the ceiling -- directly at Junkrat and Roadhog.

“Eyes in the back of his head! Eyes in the back of his head!” Junkrat scrambled away from the skylight, caught off guard.

There was a _bang_ as one of the triad members shot at them, and one of the panes of glass shattered. Junkrat peered over the edge. Only a few of the gang members had guns, not expecting to be ambushed in the safety of their own hideout.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Roadhog murmured.

“Eh, it was worth a shot.” He climbed to his feet and hefted his grenade launcher. “Now’s my time to shine!” He cackled maniacally as he stood near the edge of the broken windowpane and let loose with an erratic barrage of grenades. He was a lousy shot, but who needed to aim when you had bouncing projectiles? Besides, his rooftop position meant that he had a leg up on the opposition -- well, maybe just one.

He popped the rack off the frag launcher to reload, and if he hadn’t been high on adrenaline, he would have thought to step back from the ledge and out of view. But he was careless and out of his mind, a still target for the Boss, whose electrifying ability reached farther than Junkrat had anticipated.

The bolt of electricity arced skyward and shocked him. His every muscle locked in place as the current coursed through him, lighting every nerve in his body on fire. The white hot pain ended as suddenly as it struck him, leaving behind the smell of singed flesh where the bolt of electricity had burned a hole in his shorts -- he was gonna need another patch -- and an intense buzzing sensation, as if his very being was trying to vibrate onto another plane of existence. “Hah!” he managed to spit out once he recovered enough to speak, stumbling forward. He was barely conscious of his moving limbs, which felt strangely disconnected from his body, both flesh and prosthetic alike. “Takes more than a shock to stop m--”  He staggered off the lip of the skylight and tumbled to the ground.

It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen from such a height; their fleeting moment of going legit swiftly came to mind. It _was_ the first time he’d been so disoriented during the plummet downward, however, and he landed less gracefully than usual. He tested his limbs. Nothing broken. Good. There was a resounding _thud_ behind him and a faint noise of pain.

“You okay?” Roadhog said, having immediately jumped after him, consequences be damned.

Junkrat turned to look at him. “Never been better!” he said, giving Roadhog his sunniest smile. It wasn’t a complete lie: he was still smarting with pain and he was sure his extremities were going to be tingling for days, but he _was_ still feeling remarkably upbeat about their current situation. Which was good, given the group of incensed triad members advancing on them.

“Good.” Hook in one hand and scrap gun in the other, Roadhog charged in front of him, his artillery spray tearing a hole in the crowd of gang members. One of them made the fatal mistake of going in for close quarters combat. Roadhog lashed out with a left hook that stunned his victim, then snagged him by the neck with the actual hook that was still clenched in his fist. He flung the man to the ground and snapped his neck with one vicious stomp.

“Hot,” Junkrat muttered to himself, hand drifting to the front of his shorts to palm himself.

Something whizzed past his head while he was zoned out, and he forced himself back to reality. He could touch himself all he wanted later -- although he would have preferred it if Roadhog was the one doing the touching. Right now, he needed to shake off his persistent desire for Roadhog long enough to get their prize.

He pulled his RIP-tire off his back and planted it on the ground, steadying it with one foot. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “my greatest creation!” No one in his impromptu audience seemed to hear him, let alone bothered to respond. Junkrat frowned. “What a bunch of inconsiderate wankers.” He revved up his RIP-tire and sent it careening into the crowd. They had no time to scatter before it exploded, sending limbs and chunks of flesh flying while the considerably more intact tire bounced away unscathed.

Junkrat ran to retrieve his tire, then joined up with Roadhog, grenade launcher at the ready. Chaos ran supreme in the warehouse, which was filled with the sounds of gunfire, small explosions, and the unintelligible Mandarin of the Boss’s shouting. Junkrat laughed and gave a whoop of delight. “I feel so alive!” he shouted over the _kaboom_ s of another volley of grenades.

He didn’t notice the Boss’s hand sparking with electricity again until Roadhog yanked him out of the line of fire. “You won’t _be_ alive if you don’t pay attention!”

“Roight, roight, sorry!” Even as he focused on repelling the gang members, Junkrat kept one eye on the Boss. He still felt not completely present in his skin, although that sensation was fading with every minute that passed. Still, he’d prefer to not relive the experience of being electrocuted. Once was enough for him.

It became apparent that the Boss needed to recharge after each electrical discharge, which bought them some time to thin out the horde further.

“Get him,” Roadhog grunted, yanking a man close with the chain of his hook and blowing his head off, “after the next one.”

Junkrat eyed the Boss. He wasn’t entirely confident in his abilities to bring down an omnic of that size with his own hands. “Might need yer help takin’ him down, big guy. Give me a nudge when I say so?”

Junkrat turned his attentions to the Boss himself, a direct challenge. Roadhog could handle the rest of the mob by himself for the time being; he’d come equipped with a few cans of hogdrogen, and they’d eliminated the gang members who had been wielding guns. He focused on closing the distance between him and the Boss as much as possible, and when the omnic raised his right hand, Junkrat shouted, “Now, ‘Hog!”

Roadhog whipped his hook at the Boss’s leg just as his hand began to spark and jerked the length of chain backwards. The omnic’s leg flew out from under him, and his hand whirled back to steady himself. The bolt of electricity shot to the ceiling.

It was enough to knock him off-kilter, and that was all Junkrat needed. He was on top of the omnic in a matter of seconds, a jackal ready to devour a carcass. He grinned down at the Boss, eyes wild.

Junkrat wasn’t a physical fighter. He had never won a fistfight in his life and did everything in his power to weasel out of them when he pissed off the wrong people. He was scrawny and malnourished, and even with all of his height, he was easily outweighed and overpowered by the other Junkers. He’d learned from an early age to fight with his smarts, with clever contraptions and homemade projectiles that he could launch from afar. He planted traps, he set explosives, he fired long-range grenades, anything to keep his distance from physically stronger adversaries. He’d only started venturing closer since joining forces with his bodyguard. He was comfortable with the knowledge that Roadhog would protect him, and that emboldened him when it came to approaching people who could very well snap him in half.

He wasn’t a physical fighter. Sure, he had freaked out and thrown a panicked punch before, but he never expected to actually hurt his opponent. He never _planned_ to lash out physically: whenever he struck out his fist, the intention was always to get someone _away_ from him. It was a haphazard form of self-preservation, a last-ditch attempt to put some distance between him and people who wanted to see him dead.

He wasn’t a physical fighter.

He’d had no idea it could feel so _good_. There was a certain heady rush that came with bashing in someone’s jaw with the full force of your metal arm. It felt _good_ to be on top.

“What-- do you want?” The Boss’s voice was venomous but stilted and staticky, and Junkrat took a perverse pleasure in the realisation that he had likely damaged its voice box.

“Yer not gettin’ me monologuing, if that’s what yer tryin’ to do,” he said with a snort of laughter. “I might be an _evil Australian bomber_ , but that ain’t me style.” He pulled out the crowbar he had hung off his belt in preparation for this moment. “Don’t mind me, just borrowin’ yer brain for a li’l pet project of mine.” He began prising up the Boss’s face plate.

“That-- I believe the human term for that is-- ‘fucked up.’”

“Probably,” Junkrat agreed. “Don’t care.” He wrenched the omnic’s face off. He could see its eyeballs moving and he shivered. “Now, _that’s_ fucked up.”

A horrific sound came from the Boss’s voice box.

“Shut up and hold still, yer makin’ this harder than it has to be.” Junkrat had practised on one of the omnic skulls from the graveyard. He knew exactly how to extract the central processing unit from the omnic’s skull. It was just considerably more difficult to do it with his test subject groaning and attempting to escape. The Boss’s metal frame didn’t have the dexterity necessary to buck Junkrat off of its chest, and its shattered jaw was affecting its ability to function. “Hooley _dooley_ , yer a feisty one.” He dug his elbow into the Boss’s throat, further restricting its movement and vocalisations.

He paused in the middle of unscrewing a component, contemplating. “Can ya even function without a brain? Like if I take this out, do ya die, or what? I mean, I’m killin’ ya anyway, just wanna know if I gotta do more work after this.”

All that came out of the Boss’s voice box was the discordant crackle of static as it was slowly crushed by the weight of Junkrat’s elbow. Junkrat shrugged and went back to work. It was a delicate process and he had more important things to worry about than the Boss’s fate. Once Junkrat’s dirty work was done, it was likely that the core in its chest wouldn’t be able to keep pistoning for much longer, with no central processing unit to send directives to the rest of its body.

He held the extracted brain up in the air with a triumphant “ _hah!_ ” A green light still glowed on the top of it; as long as they installed it within the next few days, they would be golden. Project Junkenstein would be a tremendous success.

“Got it?” Roadhog said.

“Yeah, I--” Junkrat looked up at Roadhog. The front of his jumper and half of his gas mask was spattered with blood, and his chest heaved with exertion. That same surge of lust swelled over him, and he faltered as his breath hitched in his chest.

Another gunshot rang out, and Junkrat was jerked aside so sharply that he could feel his brain knocking around his skull. A straggler had found one of her dead friends’ guns and was emptying the magazine in their general direction, her hand unsteady as she clutched at a gaping wound in her side.

“Let’s go,” Roadhog said. He sucked down a breath of hogdrogen and flung his hook at the woman. The gunfire ceased.

Junkrat nodded and sprang to his feet. “Got what we came for, no use stickin’ around.” He looked down at the Boss’s corpse and its mangled head. It didn’t seem right to leave the rest of his body in such pristine condition. “Hang on, got one last thing to do.” He used the tip of his screwdriver to carve a crude smiley face on the Boss’s chest. He thought the X’d out eyes really drove the whole _dead_ point home. “Beautiful,” he said, grinning every bit as wide as the face he had just etched out. “Alright, I’m done, we can go now.”

They left the warehouse through the front door, leaving a bloody massacre in their wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just two more chapters left. Thanks for sticking with this so far!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The penultimate chapter, and something I think a lot of you have been waiting for!

Junkrat hurried them along back to their hideout, unwilling to accept victory until he was sure they had escaped pursuit. When they were safe and sound in the bunker, he collapsed on the floor and held the brain out in front of him. “We got it,” he said disbelievingly. “We got it!” He fell flat on his back and positively rolled on the floor in his glee, laughing like a hyena as he clutched the final piece of his project to his chest.

“We got it, and you almost got killed.” Junkrat dropped his arms to his sides and looked up at Roadhog. He looked impossibly tall from this vantage point, and just as attractive as he had been in the heat of battle when Junkrat had forgotten himself entirely. “More than once. What the hell happened?” Roadhog’s breathing was labored, and it only intensified the urge to jump his bones.

“I mean, in my defence, I _was_ just electrocuted.”

“It was more than that.” He wasn’t wrong.

Junkrat couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay, look, Roadhog, mate... I really gotta get laid, okay? I keep thinkin’ about ya--”

“Is that why you’ve been shit at everything lately?” Roadhog was as blunt as ever.

“Might be makin’ me a tad distracted, yeah,” Junkrat confessed.

Roadhog folded his arms across his chest and studied him before letting out a huff of amusement. “Come here,” he said.

Junkrat bounced to his feet, hardly daring to get his hopes up. “You mean--”

Roadhog pushed his gas mask up. “If it means you’ll stop fucking up, yeah.” The words were expressionless, but the smirk on his face spoke worlds. Junkrat rarely had the context clues of facial expressions to tell when Roadhog was teasing.

“Ah, go to hell!” He returned the smirk as he leaned up to kiss Roadhog, hands gripping his face.

Junkrat was buzzing with excitement -- he had been waiting for this moment for what felt like forever -- and he was in no mood for pretending to be chaste. He kissed Roadhog insistently, grinding against him with needy abandon.

“You weren’t kidding,” Roadhog grunted when Junkrat gave him a moment to breathe.

Junkrat giggled helplessly.  ”I _toldja_ I need to get laid! No, no, I know _exactly_ what I need...”

He dropped to his knees, snickering to himself, but Roadhog wasn’t having any of it.

“Stand up,” he said, voice suddenly sharp.

Junkrat straightened out, intrigued in spite of himself. “Okay, suckin’ ya off can wait. What you got in mind?”

The line of Roadhog’s mouth hardened. “Nothing. The mood’s gone.”

All of Junkrat’s levity evaporated instantly. “The mood’s-- what the bloody hell are ya on about, ‘the mood’s gone?’ Not like somethin’s changed.”

“It has.” There was something odd in his voice, but Junkrat was too angry to discern the reason behind it.

He was, in a word, pissed off. “Oh, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me-- _again_? What the bloody hell is yer _problem_ , ya son of a bitch!” He didn’t think before he acted. He rarely thought before he acted; his body had a mind of its own, and it ran several seconds ahead of his brain. He snatched Roadhog’s gas mask off of his head so that he could properly glare at him.

He realised that he had gone too far the second it happened, but any regret he felt was instantly replaced by awe.

He had, in some sense, known what laid under Roadhog’s mask. He’d felt the full canvas of his face the first night they kissed, in the pitch black darkness of Ava’s living room. He’d felt burnt flesh, and he saw the corner of a scar every time Roadhog bared the lower half of his face to eat something or to kiss him. But actually putting all those pieces of knowledge together and _seeing_ it as a whole was an entirely different story. It was one thing to know, in theory, that his partner was a burn victim. It was another thing to actually see the damage left behind: the twisted, darkened skin that covered the upper right side of his face, a tapestry of whorls that immortalised the incident that left Roadhog scarred for life.

The left side of his face didn’t fare much better, as Junkrat saw the full extent of the scar he always got a glimpse of -- a nasty gash that curved up Roadhog’s cheek and over his eye, the remnant of some nasty incident that he had never confided about. He looked like he’d been through hell and back.

Junkrat loved it.

His hand automatically drifted up to Roadhog’s face, unable to resist the urge to touch the textured surface of his skin.

He never got that far, however, as Roadhog snatched the mask back from him and pulled it back on, obscuring his face from view once more.

Then Roadhog’s hand was at his throat, fingers just tight enough to remind Junkrat that Roadhog had the ability to kill him at any given moment.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again,” Roadhog growled, his voice low and dangerous.

It was entirely inappropriate, given the situation, but the sound of his menacing voice and his chokehold flooded Junkrat with arousal. He couldn’t help it: a nervous giggle slipped out of him, which only added fuel to the fire of Roadhog’s anger. “I, I won’t,” he managed. “Just thought--” He didn’t know _what_ he had been thinking, but Roadhog mercifully interrupted him before he had to think of an end to the sentence.

“I don’t _care_ what you thought, I don’t _care_ who you are, you don’t get to take this from me unless I say so.” Roadhog’s grip tightened, and Junkrat nodded wildly, entirely aware that he had overstepped his boundaries. Roadhog’s gas mask was his lifeline. Beyond keeping his lungs in working condition, it shielded his disfigured face from the world. It was a part of his identity, and Junkrat knew in retrospect that he had no right to forcibly take it away without Roadhog’s consent. He clearly hadn’t been ready to show Junkrat the extent of his damage, or else he would have bared his face a long time ago. Now, he couldn’t even do that on his own terms.

The regret was back, slightly overtaking how turned on he was at the moment. He tried choking out an apology, but he wasn’t sure how much of it Roadhog could understand through his constricted windpipe.

Whether or not he had heard him, Roadhog released his grip and stormed off, leaving the room entirely. Junkrat heaved a breath, his lungs working like bellows as he tried to replenish the lost air. He sat down on the edge of the iron bed frame, thinking as he fiddled with his hands.

Roadhog didn’t immediately return, so Junkrat got up to search for him. He found him deeper in the bunker, further away from the entrance than they had thus far ventured. Roadhog was sitting on the floor, torch shining on a wall that displayed old street signs.

Junkrat sat down next to him and drew his knees to his chest. “Sorry.” He drew a line in the dirt on the ground with his finger. “Shouldn’t’ve done that. Yknow me, don’t always think before I do shit.”

“No. You don’t. “

“Just kinda snapped, like. Didn’t think I was that disgusting, that you _really_ don’t want me gob anywhere near ya.”

Roadhog’s head snapped up in alarm. He apparently hadn’t considered this interpretation. “No. No, it’s not that.”

“Well, what the hell else am I supposed to think? You shut me down every time I wanna go down on ya, y’said it was kinda my fault why. Pretty sure it’s cause I’m all like this.” He gestured vaguely at his body. He wasn’t entirely un-self-aware, he knew what he looked like to others: dirty, freakish, just plain screwed up. He was the furthest thing from conventionally attractive, with bulging eyes, clumps of missing hair, and a concave stomach.

“Sorry.” Roadhog shook his head. “I messed up. Didn’t think about how it’d look to you.”

Junkrat gave a shaky laugh. “Guess we’re more alike than we thought, ain’t we?” At least he wasn’t the only fuckup in the room.

A puff of laughter escaped the filters of Roadhog’s gas mask. “Guess so. But it has nothing to do with who you are as a person.”

“Then what?” Junkrat asked, expression helpless as he looked up at Roadhog. “What’d I do? If it’s not about me as a person, then why ain’t I good enough? Y’like me enough to pash me, but not enough for anything past that.” He averted his gaze, going back to tracing patterns on the dirty floor.

“Junkrat.” He looked back up at Roadhog, who took his face into his hands, solid and warm amidst the omnipresent chill of the bunker. “I don’t just like you. I love you. Even when you’re an asshole.”

Junkrat was at a momentary loss for words. He loved Roadhog -- of _course_ he did, he couldn’t live without him in his life, and it wasn’t an entirely hyperbolic sentiment -- but neither of them had ever expressed it in such plain terms. It had never occurred to him to say it out loud before, truth be told.

Roadhog sighed and dropped his hands. “Don’t know how to talk about it without sounding stupid. I’ll explain tomorrow.” Junkrat nodded numbly. “Get some sleep.” He stood up and left Junkrat alone to collect himself before finding his own way back to their living quarters.

“Love ya too, ‘Hog,” Junkrat mumbled into empty air. He touched his cheek. It was still warm from Roadhog’s touch.

 

\---

 

Junkrat couldn’t sleep that night. He spent most of it working on the omnic in intervals, not wanting to disturb Roadhog’s sleep with the torchlight. It was an extremely delicate procedure -- akin to brain surgery, he thought -- but after a few hours of on again, off again work, he was able to integrate the Boss’s central processing unit. All that was left was to repeat the process they had began with Yongary by transferring the god program with Jae-won’s code to a hard drive and hooking it up to their newly frankensteined host.

 _It won’t be long now_ , he thought, _before we’re gods_.

That was, if there even was a “we” after the next day’s conversation.

It seemed like he had finally just drifted off to sleep when he felt Roadhog stirring beside him, and then it didn’t matter how tired he was, he was up.

Junkrat anxiously waited for Roadhog to enlighten him.

“You remember when we were in prison?” Roadhog began.

“How could I forget?”

“And you sold your cellie’s cigs to Belmont. Like an idiot.”

“Sure did,” Junkrat agreed.

It was a testament to his occasional thick headedness that he didn’t know what Roadhog was driving at until it was spelled it out for him.

“So you remember blowing him to get them back?” Roadhog said, blunt as ever.

“Oh.” He remembered. It hadn’t been his idea, and he’d desperately tried to make sure Roadhog knew that. “Well, yeah, but -- y’know I didn’t _want_ to do that, roight?”

“That makes it worse,” Roadhog emphasised. “That’s all I see every time you get down on your knees.”

Junkrat tried to picture the scene as Roadhog had witnessed it: the sight of him on his knees, Belmont’s hand on the back of his head, forcing him down and gagging him. He had the sneaking suspicion that this was one of those times where his lack of social interaction outside of the Junkers had altered his perception of reality compared to Roadhog’s. It had been an unpleasant experience, but he had _agreed_ to degrade himself for a few short minutes if it meant getting what he wanted out of it. Whether or not he _wanted_ to do it was inconsequential: he had endured it, celebrated what he gained as a result, then promptly dismissed it from his memory.

He plopped down on the edge of the iron bed frame, suddenly boneless. He was almost let down by the revelation, that the reason why Roadhog had been consistently turning him down was because he couldn’t stop thinking of the scene he had walked in on all those months ago. “That’s it?” he said aloud.

“Yeah,” Roadhog said, and the sullenness in his voice made Junkrat sit up straighter. “That’s it.”

“Not-- not that I’m sayin’ it’s wrong of ya!” Junkrat hastened to say. “Just-- big guy, I didn’t think it’d be something y’d get hung up on, y’know? Tell ya the truth, I’d already forgotten it happened meself,” he confessed.

“I didn’t.” Junkrat watched Roadhog’s fist clench into a tight ball. He slid off the bed frame to sit next to him and uncurled Roadhog’s fingers so that he could hold his hand.

“I know. I mean, I know _now_. So it’s not the grandest of memories! Who cares, I’m all yours now, ain’t I? Not like _that’s_ ever happenin’ again, so y’can just go ahead and forget all about that.”

“I car--” Roadhog seemed prepared to argue against Junkrat’s entirely unprofessional and uninformed opinion on psychological matters, but something inside of him gave way. “Yeah. You’re mine.”

Junkrat grinned. That, at least, was something they could agree on. They were both greedy by nature, an amalgamation of a lust for wealth and material pleasures and a magpie-like affinity for anything shiny or off-limits. It stood to reason that their possessiveness extended to each other. After all, they were all the other had left in the world.

“So why can’t I make some good memories to replace that? So y’just think of me blowing _you_ , not that creep. Reprogram yer brain, like. That seems like a legit thing.” He nudged Roadhog. “Yer all I got eyes for, mate.” When Roadhog didn’t immediately answer, his nudging turned into wriggling, until he was on top of Roadhog and draped over his belly.

Roadhog looked down at him. Junkrat raised both of his eyebrows as if to say _how ‘bout it?_

“Fine. It’s not like I haven’t wanted to, it’s just...”

“Yer brain bein’ stupid. I get it, y’know me, my brain’s all holey, y’can’t help it. But-- but you just said yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes!” Junkrat rolled off of Roadhog and hopped to his feet, giggling in unbridled delight and immediately undoing his belt. In his haste to pull his shorts down, they got tangled in his boot. He stumbled and would have fallen over had Roadhog not grabbed his elbow to steady him. “Ta!

With the warmth of the space heater to keep the chill at bay, he shed his jumper and reached for Roadhog’s. He wanted to feel his skin pressed flush against his own, and he did so the second he wrestled the offending garment off of Roadhog. Junkrat hugged him tight with an ardent, “Ya won’t regret this, promise!”

He fell to his knees in front of Roadhog, and he could _see_ him tense up, a warning hand automatically reaching for his head. Junkrat paused with his hands on Roadhog’s belt buckle and looked up at him. After a moment, Roadhog relaxed, the stiffness visibly leaving his muscles as he worked his way past the instinctive reaction. He loosened his grip on Junkrat, threading his fingers through his spotty hair instead.

Encouraged, Junkrat went back to undoing his pants, giddily tittering to himself. He moaned when he finally -- _finally_ \-- got to see Roadhog’s cock. “Oh, mate, it’s better than I imagined.” Roadhog laughed, and Junkrat’s eyes darted up to look at his mouth. He rarely got to see that beautiful grin, wide and arrogant, with a chipped canine that mirrored Junkrat’s gold tooth.

Even half hard, Roadhog was impressive in size, and Junkrat touched him with a reverence he usually reserved for his newly conceived creations. He stroked him one, two, three times, until he could feel the steady thrum of his dick pulsing with arousal.

“Get on with it,” Roadhog said, his deep, gravelly voice interrupting Junkrat’s mesmerisation.

Junkrat burst into manic giggles, shrill and out of control. “Gladly!” He all but melted on the spot when he wrapped his lips around the tip of Roadhog’s cock. It made his jaw ache, his mouth stretched to capacity, but if anything, the pain made it better. It reminded him that this was real, not some particularly vivid wild dream, a fantasy concocted by his thirsty subconscious. He closed his eyes in utter bliss as he lapped up the precum dripping down the underside of Roadhog’s cock, savoring its faint taste before sucking on his head in earnest. He was physically incapable of taking more than an inch or two due to its sheer girth, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Drool trickled out the corner of his mouth. He couldn’t regulate his saliva when he was compromised like this, but it wasn’t a downside, in his humble opinion. He used it to slick up the palm of his hand and jerk off the considerable amount of dick he couldn’t fit in his mouth.

Junkrat couldn’t help but moan around Roadhog as his head bobbed up and down. He hadn’t so much as touched himself, but he was already hard, obscenely excited, and convinced that he could get off hands-free, as long as he could suck Roadhog’s cock.

But his self restraint could only last so long, and it was mere moments before he was rutting against the metal of his right hand. He had never been very good at controlling his baser instincts.

In his defence, he had been waiting for this moment for a _very_ long time. His enthusiasm was bound to get the best of him.

“Stop.” The hand in Junkrat’s hair tightened. “Junkrat, stop.”

The words dimly registered somewhere in Junkrat’s mind, and he chose to ignore them. He was too eager, too caught up in his rhythm, too overwhelmed by sensation to heed Roadhog’s wishes. If anything, it made him more desperate, more determined to make Roadhog come in his mouth.There was nothing he wanted more than to taste him.

Roadhog involuntarily jerked forward as he came, forcing Junkrat to take more of him than he’d thought capable. His throat spasmed around him before he recovered and pulled off of Roadhog with a hoarse gasp.

“ _Oh_ ,” was all he managed, shuddering. He tipped his head back with a blissed-out grin, eyes closed and tongue hanging out of his mouth.

“You didn’t listen when I told you to stop,” Roadhog accused.

Junkrat cracked open an eye, his grin turning sheepish. “Sorry, sorry, I knew ya were close to finishing, and I just _really_ wanted it... bit selfish of me, maybe.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Uh. Why didja want me to stop anyway?” He needed to know just how bad he should feel about not obeying.

“I wanted to _finish_ closer to you.”

Junkrat was intensely relieved. “So, not bad at all?”

There was a beat of silence as Roadhog tried to connect the two unrelated sentences. “What?”

“Never mind, never mind, move past it. So, ah, what was that about me finishing?” He smirked, eyebrow cocked knowingly. He loosely circled the base of his dick, his hips canted upwards in invitation.

“Too late.” Roadhog’s voice was dispassionate and calculated. “If you want to finish, you’re going to have to work for it.”

“What!” Junkrat yelped, the smirk vanishing. “ _Why?_ ”

“You kept going when I asked you to stop,” Roadhog said, as if it was obvious. Maybe it was. Junkrat wasn’t always good at recognizing the obvious. “You violated the cardinal rule of sex. Get yourself off.”

Junkrat’s face dropped. He scooted closer. “C’mon, not even a l’il helpin’ hand?” he bargained.

“No. You need to learn a lesson.”

Junkrat emitted a long, guttural groan of frustration, head tossed back to properly convey his displeasure.

“Not helping your case.”

He shut up. With a scowl, he licked the palm of his hand and stroked himself. Spit and precum made an acceptable lube, but no form of jerking himself off could compare to someone else’s touch. Roadhog wasn’t going to budge on this front. Maybe there was a moral to the incident after all, although he wasn’t totally sure what it was. Listen to Roadhog when he gave him an order, maybe. Still, Roadhog never seemed to mind all that much every other time he ignored him, so he was a little fuzzy on where the line was regarding when he could and could not disobey him. Maybe it was a consent thing? This, too, was confusing from his standpoint -- Roadhog had wanted to be blown in the first place, so wasn’t that consent enough to keep going? -- but it sounded right to him.

With this in mind, he tried asking, “Can I, uh…” Junkrat groped for the right words but came up empty-handed. He figured it would be easier to show than tell, so he straddled Roadhog’s thigh and looked up at him questioningly. “That a thing I can do?”

“Don’t expect me to do anything. But yes. You may.”

Junkrat shot him a dazzling grin. “Don’t need ya to do anything! Got all I need right here.” He patted the meat of Roadhog’s upper leg and chortled.

Roadhog folded his arms across his chest. He was not impressed, which only made Junkrat laugh all the harder. He flung his arms around Roadhog’s neck and rubbed up against his thigh.

“ _Ooh._ ” He bit his lip and leaned into the sensation, pressing down harder. “Come _on_ ,” he whined, grinding his hips into Roadhog. It was impossible for him to stay still, and he was already unwinding his arms from around Roadhog to reach for his hand instead.

Roadhog didn’t curl his fingers around him like Junkrat had hoped for, but he let him push up against him with shameless abandon. Junkrat thrust up against the palm of Roadhog’s hand, babbling nonsensically the whole time. “Oh, _fuck, ‘_ Hog--” His next few words were indistinguishable even to himself, but he did manage an audible, “Don’t stop!”

“I’m not doing anything,” Roadhog pointed out.

Junkrat wasn’t listening. A stream of curses bubbled from his lips, and he groped for Roadhog’s free hand so that he could guide it to his mouth. Roadhog still wasn’t participating, but he let Junkrat slobber over his fingers. It wasn’t terribly sexy, but Junkrat was so far gone that he didn’t care; he let himself get lost in sucking on one of Roadhog’s fingers while he rutted up against his other hand.

    Roadhog, to his credit, humoured him for longer than he normally would have before he gently tugged both his hands away so that he could lean back on his palms. Undeterred, Junkrat went back to rubbing up against Roadhog’s thigh, hands splayed across his chest.

The friction was overwhelming. He panted heavily, tongue lolling. Even with Roadhog’s utter lack of involvement, he’d managed to work himself into a feverishness, his head hazy with a mounting pleasure that threatened to overflow at any given second.

Roadhog’s voice cut through the fog in his head. “Stop.”

Junkrat’s first instinct was to disregard the order and finish grinding himself to completion, but he remembered the displeasure he’d faced the last time he’d ignored a request to stop.

He whimpered but stilled himself. He was a mess, all drool and precum and ragged breathing, and he was so close to the edge that the frame of his body trembled with the effort of containing himself. “I--” was all he managed before his voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. “Do, do ya need me to get offa ya?”

He could hear the smile in Roadhog’s voice. “You listened. Good boy.” He wasn’t going to reward Junkrat by touching him where he most desperately wanted to be touched, but Roadhog reached up to cup Junkrat’s face with one large hand.

Junkrat pressed into the contact, rubbing his cheek against Roadhog’s palm.  His half-lidded eyes drooped shut. “Y’wanted me to,” he mumbled.

Roadhog sounded pleased, and that was reward enough. “Exactly. And no, I don’t need you to get off of me. But you can get off on me.”

The permission from Roadhog, allowing him to come, was all he needed. All that pent-up pleasure peaked, and he fell apart with a shuddery gasp, his hips jerking up erratically as he spilled across Roadhog’s stomach.

Roadhog patted his head. “Good job,” he said, his voice a low rumble, and the quiet praise made Junkrat shudder from head to toe. The tension of keeping himself in check dissipated, all the sexual frustration vanishing entirely. He was too blissed out to hold himself upright any longer, so he simply sagged wordlessly against Roadhog’s chest.

They stayed like that for a few long, peaceful minutes, until the room’s damp chill became too much for them even with the space heater’s glow. They slipped back into their clothes and under their now fairly dirty mink blankets.

Junkrat nestled against Roadhog’s side, slinging a leg over his thigh.

“Better?” Roadhog asked.

““Mmm _hmmm,_ ” Junkrat hummed in bleary agreement.

“Good. Maybe now you won’t be so useless,”

Junkrat snickered and nuzzled his head closer. “Only if we do this on the reg. Can’t promise I won’t get all loony again if ya go back to rejectin’ me all the time for a stupid reason like that.”

“Deal,” Roadhog said.

They fell asleep together, safe and snug and completely content.


	15. Chapter 15

Junkrat woke up to the smell of smoke and the suffocating sensation that something was horribly wrong. He extricated himself from beneath the dead weight of Roadhog’s arm and blearily stumbled out of the room to investigate. The air was warm, warmer than it had any right to be. He wandered down the corridor and turned the corner.

His eyes were still heavy with sleep. He rubbed them with his fists, convinced that they weren’t working right. It was the only explanation for the wall of smoke and fire that stretched down the tunnel in front of him. That, or he was dreaming.

He inched closer to the flames, his face burning up as he approached, and reached his hand out. He was used to extreme heat, but he couldn’t make it more than a couple metres away from the fire before the blaze became unbearable. This was no dream.

He could smell petrol and the foul smell of burning rubbish. If he glanced down, he could see the clearly demarcated line where the fire stopped in front of him. It stretched all the way out of sight, presumably back to the entrance. Someone had doused the area with petrol before setting it ablaze. Refuse served as tinder, fueling the flame long after the petrol had been consumed, and it filled the air with dense, grey smoke that smelled like rotten eggs and stung Junkrat’s eyes.

Smoke billowed in his face, and he coughed, pulling his jumper up over his mouth and nose. No one _knew_ where they had set up base, no one except Lee, and they’d butchered the entire triad--

Junkrat froze, still dangerously close to the fire as he furiously tried to remember whether or not he’d seen Lee the previous night. She cut a distinctive figure with her facial tattoo, and the more he thought about it, the more certain he became that he hadn’t seen her face among the nameless gang members he’d fought the night before.

He swore and sprinted back to the room, which was growing hazy with smoke. He urgently shook Roadhog awake, trying to hold back his coughing. “‘Hog, ‘Hog, okay, don’t freak out, but there might be a _tiny_ fire outside.”

Roadhog sat upright and looked around the room. The gas mask filtered out the smoke, which was the only reason why he had managed to sleep through it. He stared at Junkrat, trying to make him out through the fog. All at once, he stood up and left to see for himself. Junkrat hopped around the room, gathering up their stuff and haphazardly shoving it into their duffel bag. He dumped a bottle of water on a rag and tied it around his face, a makeshift bandanna to help filter out the smoke. It made it a little easier to breathe. It took two trips, but he lugged their belongings outside, where he found Roadhog staring at the wall of fire.

“That’s no tiny fire.”

“Might’ve been a slight under-exaggeration.” There was no way they were getting past this. “Junkenstein!” Junkrat said suddenly. They had made the executive decision to sleep in a different room than the one they used as their mad lab, particularly once their creation began to reach its full form. It was a terrifying, if awe-inspiring, creature, and even without a brain hooked up to it, they weren’t quite comfortable enough to fall asleep with its silhouette lurking in the corners of their eyes. “We gotta go get it, I’m not lettin’ all that work go up in smoke!” He held his breath and ran towards the flames and the doorway that led to their nearly-complete omnic. “You do the heavy liftin’, I’ll take care of all the miscellan--” He stopped abruptly when he turned his head to find that he was entirely alone. Roadhog was still rooted to the spot further down the tunnel.

Junkrat looked at the doorway, then back at Roadhog. He wasn’t sure he could drag his beast of an omnic back himself, and regardless, he didn’t want to be separated from Roadhog. And yet, he didn’t want to force Roadhog to get any closer to the fire. He’d never seen his bodyguard frozen by fear before, and it was deeply unsettling. Junkrat didn’t bear any childhood traumas that he was aware of -- for as twitchy as he could be, he wasn’t easily traumatised. He had a skewed worldview, a faulty memory, and the inability to give a shit. He simply wasn’t affected by negative things that occurred in his past. It had never even occurred to him that Roadhog could be different from him, that he could have been scarred by the events of his lifetime, enough to shed his former life entirely. It had never even occurred to him that the man who had so brutally and gleefully murdered dozens not 24 hours ago could be the same man who was paralysed by the sight of a fire.

Junkrat looked back at the doorway. “Ah, fuck it,” he muttered to himself. He turned around and ran back towards Roadhog, abandoning the project he had so meticulously labored over and his dreams of reigning supreme over all omnics. “Run!” he yelled, grabbing Roadhog’s hand.

They ran until they were out of breath, venturing further into the bunker than they had ever gone before.

Junkrat bent over, hands on his knees as he panted shallowly. He already regretted his decision to run. There was precious little air as it was, and he was breathing too hard.

Roadhog didn’t have the same issue, given his gas mask’s air filters, but he had his own problems to worry about. “Couldn’t smell the smoke,” he muttered, preoccupied with his own thoughts. “Coulda slept right through it and died.”

“Well, y’didn’t,” Junkrat said. “That’s whatcha got me for.”

“You might not always be around.”

“That’s not ominous at all.”

Roadhog gave a noncommittal hum in response.

Junkrat straightened up and looked at him. “Tell ya what, we make it out alive, I’ll build you yer own portable smoke detector.”

“Good.”

The insufferable heat was lessening, replaced by a distinctly uncomfortable clamminess as they delved further into the damp underground bunker. They had outrun the worst of the smoke, but the air wasn’t getting any easier to breathe. Their only way out, and their only source of fresh air, had been sealed off.

With nowhere else to go, they kept walking.

“It’s happening again,” Roadhog said, and there was something odd in his voice, something raw and painful that Junkrat had never heard before.

He kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the ground, tracking the bobbing light of the torch Roadhog held to illuminate their path into the unknown.

“I was 18. Woke up like this. In the middle of the night, house burning down around me. It was something stupid, a frayed space heater cord or something, don’t fully remember. Lost my whole family that night.”

“Oi.” Junkrat didn’t know what to say. This kind of vulnerability was unfamiliar territory for him, and it left him feeling supremely awkward.

“Moved to Australia after that.”

Junkrat nodded. That was one of the few things he did know about Roadhog’s past, that he was originally from New Zealand.

“Brought one of the pigs with me, took up where my parents left off.”

Junkrat imagined a young Roadhog isolating himself in the Australian Outback, where he could be left alone and raise his pigs in peace, his last tie to his recently deceased family. “Which pig? Ink?”

He thought he heard the faintest glimmer of a smile in Roadhog’s voice. “No, it was Ink’s great-grandmother. Betsy.”

“Where’s the pun in that name?”

“No pun. My mother named her.”

“Guess ya didn’t inherit yer sense of humour from her, huh?”

“No. She was serious. Quiet, unless she was mad. She loved Betsy, though.”

“Oh. Sorry she died.” The words felt empty, but he had no idea how else to address a decades-old loss.

“Yeah.” Roadhog sighed. “Me too. Lost a lot that night. Lungs have been bad ever since. Then the radiation...” He trailed off, but Junkrat got the gist of it. All of the smoke inhalation caused damage enough, but the radiation poisoning destroyed them, taking him from asthmatic to perpetual gas mask wearer.

Junkrat was fervently hoping that his own lungs would recover just fine, if they managed to survive this, when Roadhog spoke up again. “You saved me.”

Junkrat looked up at him in surprise. “What, me? When?”

“Just now. With the fire. Not sure I would’ve been able to move without you.”

“Ah. Well, y’know.” He shrugged. “Figured it was about time I returned the favour, what with all the times _you’ve_ saved _my_ arse.”

They were well into the belly of the beast by now, the walls claustrophobic around them and the air stale and hard to breathe. The temperature was dropping, and Junkrat jerked back when he accidentally brushed against a wet and slimy wall.

He forged slightly ahead of Roadhog, a shield between his bodyguard and whatever laid ahead. Whether it was his usual self-destructive boldness or a desire to protect Roadhog that motivated him, he couldn’t say. Whatever it was, he kept a few paces in front of him.

“Eugh!” Junkrat rounded a corner and plunged into knee-deep water -- cold, plague-infested sludge, the contents of which were better left unknown. Mud and filth never bothered him, but the slop was unpleasant and freezing and smelled horrific even by his standards. “Holy _shit_ , get me out, get me out!”

Roadhog hauled him out of the mixture of water and waste and decomposing matter, and Junkrat slumped down against the wall.

The atmosphere was thin. He’d used up precious air and energy by yelling, and he was becoming increasingly aware that without any air circulation, he was going to asphyxiate.

“I’m gonna die,” he said, masking the weakness in his voice by dramatically flinging his arm over his eyes.

Roadhog silently sat down next to him. Junkrat peeked at him from under his arm to find him staring directly at the wall opposite them.

He dropped his arm. Roadhog’s taciturn agreement terrified him, as much as he wanted to pretend otherwise. Roadhog was usually the first one to call him out on his melodrama; the fact that he didn’t immediately shoot him down with a “No, you’re not” meant that he wasn’t over-exaggerating.

They were going to die in here.

Junkrat rested his head on Roadhog’s shoulder. Part of him wanted to be freaking out, to refuse to accept death, to try and seek a way out, but the other part of him, the part of him that was beginning to severely feel the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, was _tired_.  And even if he hadn’t been sluggish and exhausted, he knew it was futile. They were underground, deep in the heart of a bunker that was carved into the earth. He didn’t have any blocks of C4 left in his arsenal to try and blast a way out through the ceiling, and even if he did, he’d probably cause a cave-in in the process and quicken their deaths. “Never thought this’d be how I’d go. Thought there’d be more explosions and fun things. Yer the only consistent part.”

To his surprise, Roadhog gave a wheezy laugh. “You always pictured me dying with you?”

Junkrat lifted his head up to look at him and raised his brows. “‘Course!”

“Pretty screwed up.”

Junkrat listlessly let his head fall back down on Roadhog’s shoulder. “Eh.”

There was a moment’s pause. “If I have to die, I’m glad it’s with you.”

Junkrat pulled down the makeshift bandana he’d tied around his face and turned his head to press a kiss to Roadhog’s clavicle. “Me too, ‘Hog. Me too--” He broke off in a fit of coughing. The mucus he hacked up tasted ashy in his mouth.

Roadhog sat up straighter in alarm and fished around for a can of hogdrogen. “Take a breather,” he said.

Junkrat obliged, and the hit of compressed chemicals helped ease the sudden pains in his chest. He hadn’t inhaled _that_ much smoke, all things considered, but the rapidly dwindling supply of oxygen was suffocating him and exacerbating the symptoms. They both knew that the hogdrogen was just delaying the inevitable.

He let the can fall to his side, and they sat there in silence, waiting death out together. There wasn’t much more that needed to be said.

Junkrat’s fog-addled brain was making it very hard for his eyes to focus on much of anything. He stared at the blank patch of wall opposite them, illuminated by the beam of the torch in Roadhog’s lap.

Roadhog shifted, and the torch moved with him, shedding light on a seam they hadn’t noticed before. Roadhog saw it first, being considerably more in control of his mental faculties.

“A door,” he said, shining the torch further up the wall. The heavy metal door was dirty enough that it had blended in with the tunnel walls, and even Roadhog had to strain to wrench it open. It was a mirror image of the entrance they had first broken into, with a long set of crumbling stone steps that led up to the surface.

A spark of hope reignited in Junkrat -- maybe, if they made it out of this godforsaken bunker in the next ten minutes, they could survive this after all. He struggled to his feet.

They hit a barrier at the top of the stairs.

“It’s walled up,” Roadhog said. “We’re still fucked.”

“No, no, we can do this!” Junkrat was desperate. He’d resigned himself to his fate, but now that he had been given this glimmer of hope, he would hold onto it until the bitter end. He ran his hands over the mortar and rapped on it with his knuckles. He didn’t _think_ it was solid concrete the whole way through. “Gimme one of my mines.”

Roadhog’s hum was doubtful as he handed over a concussion mine.

They crouched at the bottom of the stairs, ears plugged as Junkrat chanted, “Three... two... one...”

With a resounding _boom_ , a cloud of dust and smoke billowed skyward, and Junkrat’s hopes soared -- but when he scrambled back up the stairs, they plummeted once more. The detonation had left behind a crater at the point of impact, but it failed to blast a hole in the wall. Freedom remained just out of reach.

Junkrat sank to his knees, woozy and defeated.

“Move.” Roadhog pushed past him and slammed his shoulder into the wall, a human battering ram.

Again.

And again.

Junkrat closed his eyes, his head full of nothing but the sound of each deafening boom and Roadhog’s grunts of exertion.

There was a great crash, and sunlight flooded through his closed eyelids as Roadhog broke through the wall. His eyes flew open as a gust of cold, fresh air hit him, and he gasped. It felt like the world was spinning when he stood up, and it was sheer will to live that enabled him to stumble out into the blinding light of day.

They burst out onto a sidewalk, narrowly missing a gaggle of pedestrians, who were looking at them like they had two heads. Junkrat collapsed on his hands and knees and brushed them off. “Don’t mind us, just... takin’ five.” They side-skirted him, whispering furiously. He rolled over onto his back and covered his face with his hands to block out the harsh sunlight.

Roadhog sat down heavily on the ground next to him, and they both rested, breathing hard.

“I give up, Roadhog,” Junkrat finally said, voice weary. “All this tryin’ and failin’... I’m full up of it. We’ve been workin’ too hard. Maybe we should just... not do this anymore. For now, anyway. Put me treasure back in the tire where it belongs and go have some fun.”

“We deserve a vacation,” Roadhog said.

Junkrat let his hands fall from his face so he could blindly grope for his partner’s hand. “Too roight, we do.” He found the thick wool of Roadhog’s jumper, the sleeve caked with blood and dirt up to the elbow. “Did you know London has crown jewels?” he continued, affecting a conversational tone. “Let’s go be kings. You can be my duke!”

“Pretty sure a king is higher than a duke,” Roadhog pointed out.

Junkrat acknowledged this with an airy, flippant wave.  ”Eh, details, details.” He felt his way down Roadhog’s arm to meet his hand.

“Can I wear the crown?”

“You mean the crown of King Jamison Fawkes the First? That’s _my_ crown. But really, c’mon, what’s mine is yers at this point. ‘Course ya can wear the crown.” Junkrat cracked open his eyes to blearily gaze up at Roadhog. With the sun at his back, his head was surrounded by a glowing halo of light that looked positively ethereal, and all Junkrat could think about was how _lucky_ he was. “And y’d look _radiant_ in it, mate.”

Roadhog gave a soft huff of laughter. “Whatever happened to fifty-fifty?”

He wrapped his hand around Roadhog’s fingers. “Details,” he repeated, his eyes drifting shut once more. “ _Details_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of another wild ride. Sorry to anyone who was actually hoping Junkrat and Roadhog would succeed -- I'm keeping it canon compliant, so it had to end in disaster. Thank you so much if you've made it this far, I truly appreciate all of you who've read both this and Origins! I'm on Tumblr over at jabberwockyx.tumblr.com, and while I can't promise that I'll actually write them, I welcome any and all Roadrat suggestions! Or questions or thoughts, I just love these two and love talking about them. Thanks again for reading! <3


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